macksom ballistic: September 2007

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Pre-Moving Day

Today I couldn't sleep, I was so excited about starting the move to our new house. I woke up around 6am and couldn't fall back to sleep so I decided to get up at 6:30am and began to organize boxes and what stuff remained in my toy room to pack. Harry got up shortly after and we headed over to our friend Chris's place to pick up his pickup truck. He and his wife are in Hawaii for a few weeks and he said we could use his truck. We got back with his truck and loaded up our first load and headed over to our new house. We met up with Bill paid our first rent and started to move in. The place looked alot bigger now that the previous owners stuff was gone. Harry and I walked through the house and choose which rooms would be my toy room, office and bedroom. We did a total of five trips and moved about half the boxes we had in the living room. It's slow going but it's a start. By next Saturday Oct 6th (our big move) we should have most of the boxes already over there. Both Harry and I are very tired not only from all the moving but getting early in the morning.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Do one good deed...

...I personally try everyday to do ONE good act of kindness. Obviously I hope I do more, but I consciously try and do at least one. Whether that be letting someone in front of me in traffic, if I'm grocery store shopping and I have a lot but the person behind me just has a bottle of water, I let them go through. Really, just one thing a day. I try, sometimes I do two! Sometimes I forget until I say my prayers and then I'm like, shit!
So that's why I really like these commercials. I know nothing about the company but I like the message the commercial sends. I think it's important, I mean when is the last time you witnessed a random act of kindness? It would be nice if the world was really this way, well I think it might be...it could be. ;-) peace

Part 1

Part 2

Do one good deed...

Part 2

Do one good deed...

Part 2

Packing, Packing and More Packing

Today Harry and I spent the majority of the day packing up my Toy room. Now that we are a few days from Oct 1st, I am felling the pressure to have everything packed up and ready to move. We got a call from Bill and he told us we would be able to start to move stuff in Sunday September 30th, we were very excited. Late in the day we ran out of boxes and instead of buying more we knew we would start to move stuff over tomorrow so we could unpack stuff and re-use boxes. Can't wait till this is all over and we are in our new house.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Beautiful Day

Today is another beautiful day for artist Jay Rolfe and everyone in the vicinity! I had some computer problems today which I have to get fixed. Since I'm using my wife's computer, I will not post a photo today. I'm still working on administrative and marketing matters.

This is the latest step of artist Jay Rolfe on his Journey From Starving Artist To 21st Century Picasso. You may view some of Jay Rolfe's unique artistic idea, his 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas paintings, on his website at http://www.3dssc.com/.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

68 degree swim

Today is a beautiful day! It was in the mid-60's for our morning walk. The afternoon temperature is now 90! I just took a swim for the first time in several weeks - I stopped when two 40 degree nights dropped the pool temp from the mid- to upper 70's to the 60's. It was 68 a few minutes ago, and it felt cold to me. It seems strange, as been in the ocean and lakes that are colder than that. I guess it's just my mind's expectation for a pool.

Today artist Jay Rolfe, having recently completed 2 major works, is catching up on administrative and marketing matters. Today's photo is of the artist and one of his recent works, Thunderbolt.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Only a half of month in the Apartment

Today I got the apartment people to only charage us half of the month of October. When I gave notice on Sept. 10th I gave a 50 days notice that meant we had to get out by Oct. 31st. I had no idea we would find a place in only 10 days.. we don't have that kind of luck, but we did. So now we were stuck paying for rent in October for two places, good thing was that we could take our time moving, bad thing was it was alot of money. So I asked the apartment people if we could only pay half of the month of October and be out by Oct. 14th. I got a reply stating that since we gave notice on Sept. 10 that we could leave by Oct. 1th and only pay for 10 days. I did not like this as I wanted at least two weekends in October to move and I emailed them back asking if we could get an extra five days. They agreed and now we are only paying half of October's rent and we get a full two weeks to move into our new house.

More TV

Since we only watch Eureka on Tuesdays, which is AWESOME and next week will be it's last for a while we were able to catch up on Monday nights CBS comedies. How I Met Your Mother and the new one Big Bang Theory. How I Met Your Mother was funny, it's been good since it premired two seasons ago. The big surprise was Big Bang Theory. I have to say I have never laughed so hard before at a TV show. This is by far the funniest comedy I have seen in a long time. If you haven't seen it you must catch it next time. If you are a geek, nerd or just like to laugh out loud you'll love this show. I could identify with so much of it, it was scary. Big Bang Theory airs Monday at 8:30 on CBS. Check it out.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Heroes!

Ok, my mind hurts! It's all a blur...did you see it? did you like it? Chills when I saw the previews for the rest of this season! I watched Chuck, then Heroes and now Journeyman...Mondays will be busy for me this season! Ok yes I put a lot of emphasis on TV and yes I could focus attention else where but hell, I work a lot! Tonight is a great night of TV, the new season starts...I got kudos at work...life is wonderful. ;-) peace

Heroes!

Heroes!!

Tonight is the the season premiere of the second season!! More later...

Heroes!!

Tonight is the the season premiere of the second season!! More later...

Heroes!!

Tonight is the the season premiere of the second season!! More later...

TV is Back

Well the summer is over and today is the first day of the new fall TV season. There are quite a few new scifi-ish type of shows on. And of course the return of my favorite sereis from last season Heroes. Monday nights we are watching on NBC Chuck, Heroes and Journeyman and on CBS How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory. Here are my thoughts on the first three from NBC. Won't be about to watch the CBS stuff till tomorrow..

Chuck - I have to admit I watched this premiere because it was on before Heroes and it looked somewhat interesting. After it was over I enjoyed it enough to watch the next episode.. it didn't blow me away. I did like the mix of comedy and action. Some of the fighting scenes were great and the action scenes where fun too. I look forward to seeing where this show goes. It has one of my favorite guys Adam Baldwin.. I'd watch just for him.

Heroes Season Two - This is the one series return that I have been looking forward to the most and it didn't disappoint. I thought it was packed full of information. They caught up with a few of our favorite Heroes and introduced a few new ones. I loved the whole Claire/Noah stories. The family sitting around the dinner table being bored out of there minds... priceless. The Hiro/kinsei story is good, I am a Hiro fan and I just hope they don't spend to much time on his story. I knew Nathan and Peter were coming back so seeing Nathan was no biggie and I kept waiting for Peter to show up. I did like Mr. Nakamora calling Mrs. Petrelli out about their sons and was cheering when Nathan kicked his mom out. And I'm not so sure Mr. Nakamora is dead.. he may have a power, maybe he can heal?? And it was great to see more heroes with the say powers, ie the boy Wes who was floating and watching Claire, creepy.. yes.. but cool. Can't wait for the next episode and see what's going on with other Heroes.

And finally Journeyman - So I watched this new series and I enjoyed it.. I was a bit confused as to why he was jumping and I'm sure they will explain more as the series goes on but it was enjoyable.I really liked that you thought through out the episode that he was there to save the man's life but really he was there to make sure this man's unborn child was born to be a great man... that was awesome. I look forward to next weeks episode.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Songs of Sunday

Howdy! Can I just say...that last night was my official last night out! Really, I'm to old...I don't wanna hear, your as young as you feel or age is just a number. No, I woke up with what I thought was a massive hangover, then I thought about it ('cause the mind is going too)I didn't drink that much, and, I don't drink hard alcohol. Just beer! So I'm like ok...then why do I feel like a truck not only ran over, but then backed up and did it again? My body hurt, I was nauseous, headache etc. but I didn't get drunk!!?? Well factor into the fact I'm usually in bed by midnight (and I think I'm cool, cause ALL my friend are in bed between 9 and 10). So I'm talking to Greg and I'm like, ya know...I tried to find an excuse...like I got blitzed last night, but that wasn't the case. The case, was...I'm old and I stayed up way past my bedtime and not only that, but I was actually busy walking and being social and all of that after midnight. *sigh* I got into bed around 3:30 a.m.! Like normally the time I get up to pee!!
So Mecca, who is way younger than I am, felt the same way today, but she was shooting Tequila so, um...she has an excuse. The last time either one of us went out was on my birthday!
In any case, we were both a wreck this morning and I'm really thinking of like, joining a Bunko group on my Saturday nights! ;)

Today's videos is Mika's Big Girl video...I love the tune and the video is cute, well anything with Mika in it will be cute. ;-) Skinny bitch! (oh yes, I'm so a hater today!)
Have a great week everyone! ;-) peace

Songs of Sunday

Our New House

Since we hadn't seen our house during the day we thought we would drive by after having our birthday breakfast. So here it is... it's our new place. The neighborhood is a more lived in area.. looked a bit better a night but it's not horrible. Can't wait to get the keys and start moving stuff in.

Happy Birthday To Me!!!

Today is my 37th birthday. It started at 7am when Harry and I had to get up and drive to my Mom and Chuck's because they wanted to make Harry and I a birthday breakfast. We had a nice time, Chuck made us breakfast. Mom and Chuck's neighbor was selling a large screen TV, So mom bought it for us for our Birthday (they still haven't bought anything for Harry's birthday). So we have a new 50" plus TV. Don't really know how big it is but it's nice. It will be a good in between TV before we get our really large HD TV in the future. The rest of the day we have just been packing here and there. Been getting Happy Birthday emails and phone calls all day today. With the move happening in a few weeks I decided not to really do any kind of birthday party so it's been a pretty mellow birthday.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Rainy Day

Today we finally got rain after five months of nothing. It rained hard but it was well needed. Harry and I stayed in all day to pack, pack and oh yeah pack some more. Continued to pack up my toy room. Boxes keep going out but it seems that I'm not making a dent in the toy room. I'm happy to be moving, but man I hate the packing part.

"Thunderbolt"

Artist Jay Rolfe was finally able to hang his new 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas painting Thunderbolt and photograph it. It's height of 10 feet was quite a challange, as the moveable wall constructed to hang and photograph paintings on is at most 9 1/2 feet high.

So here is today's photo of Thunderbolt, the latest 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas painting by Jay Rolfe. These photos are amateur photos, and not touched up or even lighted professionally. They just give you an idea of the power of the painting which is awesome in person. I'm excited!

A Shout Out

I want to give a shout out to Jessica from Niles, Illinois.

Jessica the letter you wrote me just now reached my mailbox. You accidentally addressed it wrong. But no worries, because I finally got it yesterday. And I want to tell you, you rock the house! Thanks for writing me!!!

"Star of David"

In honor of today being Yom Kippur, artist Jay Rolfe has chosen as today's photo his 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas painting Star of David which is 8 feet in diameter. It was one of his most complicated paintings to create. Each of the 6 tips of the star recede from a depth of 6 inches to about 1 inch. That was difficult to create. Star of David is part of a larger work titled Give Peace A Chance (a/k/a Peace In Our Time) which is 8 feet high and 35 feet wide.

Friday, September 21, 2007

"Duchamp At The Middle East Peace Table"

Duchamp At The Middle East Peace Table is the latest work by artist Jay Rolfe. It is a large sculpture, his first. It is shown in today's photo in installation view. It consists of a Peace Table with a Peace Symbol top on an Oil Barrel base and 4 participants set on stools around the Peace Table, each represented by a symbol. Three symbols represent religions, Christian, Jewish, and Islamic. The fourth symbol represents Marcel Duchamp.

Duchamp At The Middle East Peace Table represents a lot of creative activity, time, and considerable effort, but the finished piece is well worth it to me. It looks amazing in person. Remember, this is an amateur photo in my dining room (which I had to empty out to take this).

Courbet's "Nude Reclining By The Sea"

When artist Jay Rolfe saw this painting, Gustave Courbet's 1868 painting "Nude Reclining By The Sea," at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, he realized it must have been inspired by Manet's 1863 "Olympia" which is in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. Apparently both Courbet's "Nude Reclining By The Sea" and Manet's "Olympia" were inspired by Titian's famous 1538 painting "Venus of Urbino" which is in the Uffizi in Florence. That in turn was inspired by Giorgioni's 1510 "Sleeping Venus" which is in the Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. It is believed that Titian, who was a pupil of Giorgione, completed the sky and landscape of Giorgione's "Sleeping Venus" after his death in 1510. Photos of all 4 paintings are included in the order from top to bottom of Courbet, Manet, Titian, and Giorgione.

Optical Illusion

Artist Jay Rolfe wants to share a truly unusual painting with you. It's not really one of my favorites, but it is amazing. It's an op-art piece done in 1961 by Richard Anuszkiewicz and called "Knowledge and Disappearance." It's a 2 dimensional painting that's an optical illusion. Seen straight on it just looks like a perspective painting with the center receding into the distance. Then seen from either side or from high or low, the center appears to move. So today's photo is 3 different views of this painting which is on view at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, front and center, from the left, and from the right. What a great example of op-art and optical illusion.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

"Thunderbolt"

Artist Jay Rolfe completed 2 projects today. First is his 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas painting titled Thunderbolt. It's 10 feet high by 3 1/2 feet wide and more than 8 inches deep. So I don't have anyplace to hang it in my studio or home. So photographing it is hard. While it was laying on a table, I tried taking a photo of it from a ladder with my head and the camera against the ceiling. It is taken from the bottom end of the lightning, so the perspective distorts the size. You can see what I mean, because here it is, today's photo.

The second project is my large sculpture Duchamp At The Middle East Peace Table. I'll attempt to photograph it tomorrow and post a photo of it.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

We got the HOUSE!!!!!!!

I got up early the today so I could get to work around 8 to fax my application for the house we say the previous night. I wanted to be the first to do it since I knew the other couple were very interested. I got to work and faxed it over to Bill. He called a few minutes later and told me he got it and will let me know by Friday. Well about two hours later he called and said I'm almost ready to give you the house but I do have one question. Since you are freelance would it be possible to see your past few years of tax forms just to make sure I make enough on my own. I told him that's not a problem. He said great let me talk to my accountant and I'll give you a call back in a few hours. A few hours pass and he called and says I would like to offer you the house. I was over the moon, I couldn't believe we finally got some good luck and got the house. I was so excited the first I did was call Harry. I had never heard him so excited before in my life. We were talking and being all giddy.. it was pretty funny.

We planned to meet at a local McDonalds and sign the lease at 7:30. Of course work was hell and I really had to force myself to leave to make it on time. I got home around 7:15 and couldn't find my tax forms so I started to panic. I did manage to fine an older tax paper and a Dec 06 paystub with my total gross and I did print out my balance in my savings. So we headed to McDonalds, where Bill was just finishing up dinner. We sat down and I showed him my paperwork, he looked it over and said.. looks good. So we started to go over the lease and the pet agreement and I signed on the dotted line. We now have a one year lease with an option to sign another one year lease. After I signed we sat there for an hour or so and just talked. Come to find out that, that house has been up for three or four weeks at $1850 and he has had alot of people look at it but he didn't feel the chemistry with them. He said there was on girl and her boyfriend who were very close but the day he was going to call and give it to her she called him and said boyfriend got cold feet and didn't want to move in together. He had just lowered it the day I saw it and have gotten hundreds of phone calls about it. Bill told us he didn't care about the money he wants good people who will really enjoy the house as much as he did. It was the first house he and his wife bought, they raised their kids there. The house means alot to him. We really connected with Bill. He's going to be an awesome landlord. So we feel very privilege that Bill chose us out of quite a few people. As I type this I still can't believe we are going to be living in a house. We now have a month to move in since we are paying rent at our old place and the new place. So it should be a fairly stressless move.

Painting

Today artist Jay Rolfe is working on parts of his large sculpture. Today's photo is of Jay Rolfe painting some of the details of a small part of the sculpture.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Random Thoughts...

For the regular readers you know Random Thoughts are usually memories I have from childhood..... or yesterday. :) Today I was thinking of how I had to sit on my dads shoulders when we were walking through a field because of the grasshoppers, yes grasshoppers! They were swarming! My brother froze in the same field as I did, but I was able to run back to my dad and I rode his shoulders to go back and get my brother. Ok, we were like 6 and 3 at the time, so the field was probably our back yard! LOL no, it was a field and we were probably no more than a few feet from my dad but it seemed like miles. We went and got my brother and my dad picked him up too and I remember telling him was ok, I guess I felt strong 'cause I was on my dads shoulders. I don't have a lot of fond memories of my dad...but that's a good one. We get along ok now, but it is memories like that, that I truly treasure.
Happy Hump Day tomorrow. ;-) peace

Random Thoughts...

House Searching

So today towards the end of my shift I decided to take a look at craigslist and see if there were any houses for rent with in our price range. I have been looking three or four times a day for houses since we have to be out by the end of Oct. I see the new listing for a Three bedroom, 1 bath house in Reseda. Now Reseda is a hit and miss kind of city. Some parts are very slummy and some aren't so bad. They were asking $1750 a month for rent. It's a bit above where I wanted to pay but it was three bedrooms and said it had a very large backyard, another thing Harry and I are looking for. I normally don't like to bother people late at night so I decided to call in the morning. Well in the ad it said to call and leave a message and they would get back to you. I figured it was a voicemail system and why not call and leave a message.

Well I called and a man picked up the phone. I told him I was interested in house. He had a friendly voice and we chatted a bit about the place. He told me that he was showing the house tonight at 7:30 and gave me the address. I told him I wasn't sure what time I was getting off work but we would drive by and check out the area and then give him a call.

I did manage to get out of work early and I called him up and told him we would love to stop by and check out the house. He asked that we get there at 7:45 so he could show the house to a couple right before us. We got there a little early and we really liked the area. It's a lived in neighborhood but not run down and the house was cute and had a well taken care of look to it. Just as we pulled up three people walked out of the house and talked in front for about ten minutes. This couple was very interested and he gave them applications and they left. We got out of the car and walked up to the front door and met Bill (the owner). Just like he was on the phone he was a very friendly guy. He showed up inside and told us a little history of the house.

The living room/dining room is fairly small but nice, we then checked out the three bedrooms, Master bedroom is a good size, second one is a bit smaller and the third one is the smallest. It has a pretty nice bathroom and there are tons of cabinets and closets. The house was built in the 50's and has really cool architectural features. We next went to the kitchen, there are no appliances and it's fairly small but it's workable. Next was the backyard and that did it. The house is cute and nice but the backyard is AWESOME. The house sits on a 3000 sq feet lot and the house is about 1300 sq. feet so the back yard is about 2500 sq. feet. It has a nice patio area and an extra concrete rock patio on the side. And it had a one car garage.

It was everything we were looking for. The owner Bill was a super nice guy. We told him we were interested and really wanted this to work out. Bill seems to really like us also. He gave me an application and told me to fax it over to him first thing in the morning. Keep your fingers crossed that we get this place... we will be very disappointed if we don't.. it's perfect for us.

Small Piece Of Large Sculpture

Artist Jay Rolfe worked yesterday and today on pieces of his new large sculpture. Just a few more days until I'm finished, I hope.

Today's photo shows artist Jay Rolfe applying a protective coating on the tabletop portion of the sculpture. The fumes are terrible and quite dangerous even according to the label. I know the breathing filter I'm wearing in the photo doesn't do much, but I hope it's better than nothing.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Taking a Tumble

Today while at work I was trying to remove ceiling panels from the unity room to relieve some of the heat from the machine. Well I was using a plastic chair and as I tried to lift the last panel, when the chair started to slid so I grabbed onto the bookshelf next to me. The next thing I knew I was lying on the floor with a ton of video tapes all over me. I had broken every shelf on the bookcase, as I slid down it and all the debris fell on me. Of course there was a loud crash and everything came running. I managed to only hurt my right leg, badly bruising my calf muscle. I'm pretty sore but it could have been alot worse.

220th Constitution Day - Freedom For Artists (And Everybody Else Too)

"We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

You probably recognize the Preamble to the Constitution. Today's a fine fall day, blue sky, bright sun, and cool, about 40 degrees when we went for our morning walk. It's the kind of day I imagine it was 220 years ago when the United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787. It replaced the Articles of Confederation - that didn't work very well - which were adopted after the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution is an incredibly important document for artists, lovers of freedom, and indeed all citizens, residents, and guests in these United States. It guarantees our freedoms from government interference.

Today is a great day to read, or reread as I am doing, the Constitution. The National Constitution Center two blocks from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in Philadelphia is a great resource. http://www.constitutioncenter.org/ You can read the full text of the Constitution at http://www.constitutioncenter.org/explore/TheU.S.Constitution/index.shtml. You can print out a copy at http://www.constitutioncenter.org/explore/TheU.S.Constitution/PrinttheConstitution.shtml.

You can also read the text of the Constitution and/or print out a copy from the National Archives website at http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution_transcript.html. You can also download a high resolution copy of the actual handwritten document from the National Archives at http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/charters_downloads.html.

Artist Jay Rolfe has a copy of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence which he bought at Independence National Park and had framed. These documents always hang in my home to remind me of my rights and the rights of all citizens and the limitations on governmental power.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Golfing nut!

Ok, so I suck...I do...but then...then I get that one nice hit on the ball and hit the sweet spot and it's all worth slamming my club into the ground all the other times!! LOL Naw, I am getting better but this evening was just a real bad round! It was a new course though and I always do bad on a new course I've never been on (well not this bad!). Other than my aspirations to be a better golfer not much going on. I know I need to move as I'm really itching for my own place now but it's just matter of saving and looking and all that comes with moving. I'll miss my roomie though, we get along ok. People who play golf or so nice, it's like all about etiquette and I must say, it works. I golf alone (awww, poor me) and a lot of time if I'm waiting on a couple in front of me, if they don't ask me to play through ('cause as a single you go faster) they will ask me to play with them, like tonight. Great way to meet new people and also learn the sport of golfing from others. One of the perks? Hot guys like to golf!! LOL so um on that note, enjoy! Hope everyone has a great week! ;-) peace

Golfing nut!

"Arab Chief"

Artist Jay Rolfe and his wife Randy Rolfe spent the day gardening and having fun at the Chester County Restaurant Festival in West Chester. It's an annual event featuring almost all the local restaurants, thousands of people, music, and lots of great food. It was a perfect day for it, sunny and the temperature in the high 60's. Then we stopped at the Four Dogs Tavern and ran into my photographer Michelle Snyder of Bella Photography in Downingtown PA. It was a fun day.

Today's photo is another of my favorites from the Philadelphia Museum of Art (I posted another favorite on Friday, 2 days ago). This is titled "Arab Chief" by Mariano Fortuny, a Spanish painter, and was painted in 1874. It's large, detailed, and wonderful to see.

Packing up my Toy Room

Today Harry and I went to my brothers and picked up a bunch of plastic containers so I can start to pack up my toy room. I knew I had a ton of stuff.. but man it's going to take me forever to pack up everything.

The Average Lunch

It's a weekday, and last night you were up late and just weren't feeling that turkey and watercress sandwich (or pb&j, pick your poison). No one's cooked in a few days so you're low on leftovers. What are you least likely to regret at the old regulars?

Here are my top choices:

Signature Salad from Cosi
Chicken Guacamole sandwich from Breadline
Aloha Pineapple from Jamba Juice (yum, liquid lunch!)
Buffalo Chicken Sandwich from Old Ebbitt Express
Hot dog from Five Guys
Mac & Cheese and a salad from Au Bon Pain

What are yours? (Cue: You leaving a comment)

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Vermilion

"How's your lamb?"
"It's--fantastic."

J doesn't usually use such strong (yet favorable) language to describe his meals! Usually a nod and a smile with "it's good" suffices for him. But before we get to the lamb, let's start from the beginning.

Appetizers! J had the cream of cauliflower soup with seafood sausage. When his mostly empty bowl arrived with just the sausage and a floret or two of cauli, he seemed confused. Then, the server poured the very creamy soup out of a teensy teapot, and ta da! Soup. My salad was the Davon Crest Blend, greens with a blackberry vinaigrette, with two blackberries and two goat cheese fritters on the side. The fritters were divine, crunchy on the outside but creamy on the inside--still warm. I wish I could go to a happy hour and just get a basket of those with an ice cold beer. Mmmmm. Are you listening, Chef Chittum? Are you adding that basket to the bar menu?

Our main courses brought J French-cut pine nut crusted lamb with a sweet syrupy glaze, and a cucumber and onion salad on the side. Consider the opener a spoiler alert--he loved it. He then compared it to other things he'd eaten recently, as in, "That pork chop at Evening Star was really good, but this is way better," and also, "My steak? At Buck's? It was good. But this...this is...::eyes roll with pleasure::."

I read that a great thing about Vermilion is that if you are a vegetarian, you aren't confined to side dishes and appetizers. If my dish I hadn't existed, I probably would have went for the chicken, which I'm sure would have been good, but I didn't really feel like chicken. The caramelized gnocchi was a dream of gnocchi, caramelized onions, fresh herbs and olive oil, and oven-dried tomatoes. As a general rule for the past 23 years, I don't even LIKE tomatoes. But I believe that in a dish, every ingredient, every line of sauce is there for a reason, and in that dish it was just fabulous. Best of all, it was nice to have gnocchi without feeling like I needed to be rolled home after. Instead of being in a thick creamy sauce all goopy-like, my gnocchi definitely hit the sautee pan, and overall the dish was inventive, light, and fresh.

J noted that one dessert choice was obvious, because it had the "F" word. No, not that F word you dirty bunch. FIG. The goat's milk cheesecake with caramelized figs was airy and delightful. As fluffy and white as the cheesecake was, the nutella bombe was just the opposite. Described as "hazelnut anglaise, salted filberts & chocolate sorbet," to us it was small round thing of super dense and delicious chocolate, with some ignorable chocolate sorbet and nuts to its right. Leaving the accompaniments aside, that anglaise was delicious. J enjoyed scraping a bit of each dessert onto his fork and eating them together. So wild.

We've been heading back to Alexandria over and over recently, and admittedly this particular evening was inspired by The NY Times.

The atmosphere in Vermilion was nice--I knew if the lounge was crowded the first level could get loud and smoky, two things that would make me sad. Neither of those things occurred. It was slightly noisy, but I'm not convinced that being upstairs would have made a difference. The lighting was not too light or too dark, the red color (or "vermilion") throughout was warm and inviting, and the gas lamps were charming. The seating was funky, especially in the lounge--similar to Tallula, Vermilion's sister.

My only complaint is that the bathrooms did not match the dining room in the slightest. Not in color, class, or style. Outside, the warm red color and stylish decor ruled. Inside the bathroom were walls horizontally striped with a circus-y purple/yellow/blue and stall doors that were once covered in black paint, but were now chipping. Badly. Also, for some reason right inside the women's bathroom was an old chair that looked like 500 mothballs woven together.

A sure sign you've had a fabulous, mind-blowing meal is when you can't imagine not have dessert. Everything has been so incredible, that you are so curious about what's next that you must have it. It helps that our courses were perfectly spaced. We didn't starve between each course, but we were definitely not rushed or overwhelmed by too much food at once.

I almost forgot about my drink! My very delicious drink! I had a King Street Lemonade, a mix of Absolut Citron, lemons, mint, sugar and a splash of soda. It didn't taste at all of alcohol and had a great balance. Too many drinks I order have been tooth achingly sweet lately, but I could have had three or four of these--good thing I didn't.

So if you don't go into the bathroom, allow Chef Anthony Chittum to surprise and delight you with every bite you take. I'd like to go back to Vermilion soon, it's one of the best places we've been to in a while.

Vermilion
1120 King Street
Metro: Blue or Yellow Line to King Street

House Hunting

After my morning with Christopher, Harry and I went house hunting, we had two places to look at today. One was in North Hollywood and one in Burbank. We first drove by the North Hollywood one and kept on driving. The area is really run down and we didn't feel safe living there. The Burbank house was on a very nice friendly street. It was a back house so we stopped and checked it out. The house had a living room, which was an okay size, a smaller kitchen and then two medium size bedrooms and a small bathroom. The cool thing about this place is it had a fenced off backyard, not super huge but a nice size for Daisy. During the walk through I was getting weird vibes from the owner, he wasn't the friendly type. After we left, I told Harry I didn't feel comfortable with the owner and in fact the house was a little too small for all the stuff we have.... so we continue to search. We have a month and a half to find a new place to live.

Harry Potter on PS3

This morning I hung out with my good friend Christopher, we went out to breakfast and then back to his place to play some Harry Potter on his PS3. We played Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This is by far my favorite Harry Potter game and for that matter any game that I have played. It was a lot of fun, can't wait to play again.

Creating A Base For Sculpture

Artist Jay Rolfe is finding out some of the intricacies of creating a large sculpture. Just making a simple base is complicated, time-consuming, and required a new very long drill bit.

Today's photo is of artist Jay Rolfe holding an unpainted base for a portion of his new large sculpture.

Friday, September 14, 2007

"The Moorish Chief"

Artist Jay Rolfe spent today working on some of the unseen parts of his new large sculpture. A lot of tedious work. It involved 2 trips to the hardware store today, and one yesterday. The day was cool and threatened to rain but didn't.

Today's photo is of one of my favorite paintings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's titled "The Moorish Chief" (also known as "The Harem Guard") painted in 1878 by Eduard Charlemont, an Austrian painter. It's quite large and very dramatic and detailed. This photo doesn't do it justice - just as most photos don't do justice to most paintings.

Rockin' N Rollin'

A few weeks ago I posted a pic of my new home. The ole RV. So here's a humorous story for your chuckle of the week.

Two nights ago this HUGE kick butt storm hit my little island. Big, big, BIG gusts of wind were barreling down through my campground. Unfortunately, my awning was out (I wasn't about to go wrangle it in with the down pour and wind) (In hind sight I should have). Me and Guapo, my trusty pooch, were holding onto our RV just a rockin' n a rollin'. And the awning was acting like a sail. Of course if the awning would have been in, none of this would be an issue and I wouldn't be blogging this story right now.

So the next morning I venture outside and see that my awning is completely stretched out just a flapping away. Well, being new to this lifestyle, I resort to asking my RV neighbors what I should do. They unanimously vote I need to wind it up and re-let it out in order to reset the spring in the mechanism.

Okay, so here I go. I recall my RV training session when I first bought it, how to do everything on the RV. Unfortunately, there's a lot of stuff you learn in that training session, and somewhere along the way I blanked out on the awning portion. So I press this lever, and tug that rope, and give a little kick to the frame, and perhaps a kiss for good luck. And before you know it, I'm wound up in the awning. Yes, folks, in the awning.

Dangling from my perch, I casually call across the campground, "Yoohoo! Can someone help me?" This family turns and looks (at me dangling) and they all bust out laughing. Glad I could amuse them.

Needless to say, they managed to unwind me and help me down from my dangling perch. Luckily, they were experts in RV living and showed me how to unwind and rewind my awning. And you know I totally made them stand there and watch me do it over and over again until I had it down pat.

At least I gave them a good laugh for the week.

Le Pain Quotidien

Le Pain Quotidien, or the daily bread is a Belgian chain that has begun to spread around the world. So far NYC, LA, and DC have the only US outposts. And now Georgetown can be The Place To Go for French-style bread/bakery stuff.

If it wasn't such a spectacular sunny but mild day, we could have sat inside at the large communal table. To many dining around us on the adorable (and spacious) patio, the place seemed more like Le Pain in the Tush. Service was admittedly slow, simple lunches took a long time to arrive, and no one was quite sure how to pay and get out of there. It was confusing--when we walked in we saw a small line, and assumed that at 12:30 that would be a line for sitting. Nope, that's for takeout. You seat yourself at Le Pain Quotidien, and then anxiously (if you're me) hope that a server notices that you've arrived and are indeed new! In need of menu! Starving!

The good news is that the food was mostly good. They translate tartines to simply "sandwich" on the menu, which may be the reason why some people furrowed their brows when their plates arrived. The tasty herbed roasted turkey sandwich consisted of 5 tiny triangles of thinly sliced wheat bread topped with a a thin layer of turkey and a squirt of dill mayo. The curried chicken salad was the same, but more generous with the topping. I was curious about how to go about using the cranberry sauce on the side, and ended up awkwardly spreading it on top of the chicken salad. Open-faced sandwiches create some problems! The black bean soup was watery and lacked flavor. The chamomile mint iced tea had the some problem--it tasted exactly like water.

When I go back to LPQ, I'm going to make it brunch. The blackboard out front boasted a goat cheese and asparagus omelet, but you've got to arrive before 12pm.

The best part about the meal, hands down, was the slice of baguette that came with the soup. It was absolutely fabulous, crusty and chewy, and all that a baguette was meant to be. There were some interesting looking salads, but I was hungry and felt like a smallish $12 sandwich wasn't going to pack the punch that I needed to keep going. And don't leave without getting something from the bakery--the chocolate chip cookie is great, as is the Belgian brownie.

Overall, I prefer the quicker and more reliable service at La Madeleine for now, but LPQ has only been open a week or so. There's more time!

Le Pain Quotidien
2815 M Street NW
Metro: Foggy Bottom or DC Circulator to Georgetown

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Perez Hilton

*sigh* I can't stand him, he's fat, he's ugly...he's just nasty but I'm watching his show on VH1, Perez sez about the VMA's. He says Britney is a train wreck (no argument here) but he is a train wreck! WHY CAN'T I TURN AWAY, WHY CAN'T I CHANGE THE CHANNEL? I'm so ashamed right now, I feel dirty, I need to flog myself like the albino in the Da Vinci Code! So since it's on VH1 and since his/her show is on 11-midnight...the next program on is Nocturnal State...VIDEOS!
The first video the night? One of my fave songs...Nickelbacks Rockstar! Why can artists say bitch on the radio waves but they can't drugs? You can say ho and ass and bitch, but you can't say drugs? Amazing. In any case...enjoy this vid...how many "stars" can you find in the video?

Was that Wayne Gretsky??

I love Paul Wall...anybody know who that is in the Vid?

Well if you don't here he is in a Brooke Hogan video...yum.

Perez Hilton

Was that Wayne Gretsky??

I love Paul Wall...anybody know who that is in the Vid?

Well if you don't here he is in a Brooke Hogan video...yum.

Perez Hilton

Was that Wayne Gretsky??

I love Paul Wall...anybody know who that is in the Vid?

Well if you don't here he is in a Brooke Hogan video...yum.

More Cutting

Here's artist Jay Rolfe cutting some pieces for his stretcher frameworks for his 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas paintings yesterday afternoon. It turns out that yesterday involved rather more time cutting than I had imagined, 7 hours of cutting. In addition to cutting out pieces for my new large sculpture, I cut pieces for stretcher frameworks for two 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas paintings. Working outside in the sun for 7 hours was exhausting.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Toothache

Well the past 48 hours have been in constant pain. Yes I have taken asprin but that only numbs the pain for about three hours... Work has been crazy busy and I haven't been sleeping well because of this toothache. Sometimes life just likes to kick you while you are done.

ISO

ISO: Fun Fantasy or Quake authors to share cozy spot on front of postcard. We can show each other off as we travel together to exotic libraries in far-off states. Must be open-minded; I like to “share.” Interested parties email jacquelynsylvan@sylvaniamania.com to begin our postal adventure.

Creating Sculpture

What a beautiful day! A perfect day for artist Jay Rolfe to go outside and cut out pieces for his new sculpture. It's sunny, blue sky, and slightly autumn cool. The photo is of Jay Rolfe cutting out a piece for the sculpture.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Plumbing Problems...

...no no, my plumbing is fine! Here is the thing, my roomie thinks that our bathroom smells like sewage and the toilet doesn't flush properly. I can't smell anything and the toilet flushes fine for me. She has been going back and forth with the landlord and we have a cheap landlord who doesn't want to pay for anything. So um, I just sit here and let them go at it. So my roomie is like, we need to tag team her in our response...um tag team? It smells fine and the toilet flushes like every other one I have ever flushed, I would be lying! So I just basically say, well give me the script and I'll look at it and perhaps the tag team thing can happen. Now, I can't smell much at all...so it really could smell bad...but I would like to think I could smell sewage! ;-) peace

Plumbing Problems...

Loving the pic!

Mary, I love it, it's perfect!

Btw, just wanted to share something I thought you all might get...was trying yesterday to convince a higher-up in my company to allow me to do an event at the company's headquarters. She was hesitant, worried the book might "conflict with the company's values." I'm okay with that, but then she said, "I still think it's so cool, though, that our employees have, like, aspirations and stuff."

It's been over twenty-four hours, and to be perfectly honest, I'm still not sure whether I should be insulted or not.