225. Back Cover for Question Reality Manuscript

I got something done on Saturday! Woohoo! Besides giving Kent the preliminary design of his t-shirt "I got the crabs from Kent!" I think the design of the book--outside covers--is the most DIFFICULT part of designing the book. Everything inside the book is relatively set. RELATIVELY. But it should be very straightforward. This part of the book is the ONLY colored part. Boohoo. Oh well.

224. Initial T-shirt Design for Kent Schiff, Rock Crab Distributor: "I Got the Crabs from Kent!"

Kent and I pre-meditated a t-shirt for his rock crab distribution business LAST SUMMER. Can't believe it. Took me a year to get around to it. I showed Karl my housemate these drawings and he was impressed. Very catchy. But I will completely understand if Kent thinks that this happy little crab is a bit too "girly" for him, and for a t-shirt! But Karl said that this cute little happy cartoon crab counter-acts the harshness of the "I got the crabs from Kent" statement. Which the contrast of statement with cute-adorableness is probably what makes the shirt catchy--at least to Karl. One person down, 6 billion left on the planet left to convince that this t-shirt is effective.

Making this shirt has been therapeutic for me. I was inspired by this morning's shoot with Sam Shrout by UCSB Campus Point. It will be much easier for me to approach Kent tomorrow morning :-). I have a preliminary present to give him!

223. Wrapping Up Interview with Sam Shrout, Fisherman, by UCSB Campus Point

This early Friday morning was inspiring and purifying. It temporarily cleared my stress and anxiety and neck pains and head aches, and all other possible anxiety-induced ailments. I just finished up my interview with Sam Shrout--dah-bomb fisherman, marketman, production crew guy (he helped move my stuff and set up my equipment), all around super human being. He was particularly relaxed and in good humor this morning (today is his day off), and I really enjoyed the company. I woke up 730 am, crawled out of bed, slight pains and such around my head and neck, cleaned up the back of the car, slithered to Kmart to buy some batteries for the audio equipment, and some sugar-free candy, called Sam Shrout--he ended up not being at the harbor. We ended up improvising. He didn't have a rock crab either. Shxt. So, I said I can borrow that brown fiesty rock crab from Shane Anderson. It took me a while to get it--because Shane wasn't there. I snuck in the marine science tanks (the door was unlocked though closed), and I had a five minute battle trying to get that dxm old brown rock crab into my housemate Karl's cooler. That crab was so defensive and it clawed the hood of the cooler. It almost clawed me, and after five minutes, it started to poop out. I have a feeling that is the most bitter, old aggressive rock crab I have EVER encountered. Due to such intense personality, I am now calling this creature "Sumo" the brown rock crab. I think from now on I will be in borrowing terms with rock crabs because I already killed three rock crabs, and one of them was $17.50 out of my own pocket from the Santa Barbara Shellfish Company. $6.50 per pound. Shxt. I'm still not over it. I hate killing crabs. I know when I ritualistically place them back the ocean, they will be consumed and recycled, but it sucks to think that three of them passed on under my own management, and I didn't even eat them or anything. Same thing happened to me with those dxmmed killifish and sailfin mollies as an undergrad. It's like Konscious Killing. New music band name, I am sure. Operating on scientific premises: kill a few, save the many. Why it works for other organisms and not scientific experiments on human beings, I am not sure. Sam was wondering what planet I am from, and I told him, I think Mars. And he said it figured. I told him I suspected this a while back and I've been questioning my parents where exactly they picked me up from.

Sam zoomed on this bike off of Patterson. Good thing UCSB is near by his house. I had time to set up, so by the time he showed up, everything's on a roll. Audio's good, visuals. Batteries, all set up. I am glad Sam didn't have to wait like LAST time. God. He's so good with all that. So we did the visual continuity exercises with the rock crab, from left to right, right to left, and then the MTV angle shot. We even had enough video tape left such that Sam could do some cartoon drawings of where he fishes, and even then, we had enough time for Sam to draw his cartoon crab, the carapace made out of the dollar sign :-). It was very beautiful setting and hardly anyone out at the ocean. Didn't even see Armand Kuris' car out. *Sigh*

Lots of pelicans, shorebirds. Couldn't believe that the "white noise" racket today was a bunch of frickin' sea gulls. Like shut up, would ya? One seagull attacked my bag full of candy and trash. It was nice to be inspired and purified this morning.

Five follow up things.
(1). I will have to set up the card table across from Sam Shrout's operation on Saturday Fish Market, so I can ask them questions about consumer habits. Grocery store. Rock crab. Etcetera.
(2). I will need to buy more mini DV tape, Sony brand.
(3). I will need to ask everyone what is their favorite music, so that I can create stuff that they like.
(4). I need to record a song at UCSB called "Manufactured." I am saturated. So I better get that started.
(5). I got permission from Sam Shrout to look up data he has with Carrie Culver. I am also interested in science, environment, and the psychology of collecting. How people interact with their environments, and how they collect "data." Whether Sam is collecting crabs or scientists collecting other forms of measurements, or Kent is collecting receipts, etcetera. I am always fascinated by human collecting and organizing habits--probably because I am so particular of the collecting habits of my own.

There's not a consistency of environment with Sam, but that's cool. I'll improvise. I tried to make the backdrop "indistinctive" and not marked with "UCSB Campus Point" all over it. There was a slope. It was uneven, oh well. Whatever. I think Sam took off his shades. I hope.

I parked illegally today. No one seemed to mind. It's funny. Everyone else is DONE with the quarter system. And I just seem to be STARTING!

I will be hunting down Kent 630am to 7am tomorrow morning.

220. Alex and Alysson Grey: Eureka! I Found Very Inspiring Artists! Human-Environmental Relations!

Please refer to http://www.alexgrey.com/.

Dear Dr. Grey:
My name is Victoria Minnich and I am one of the first three Ph.D. students in environmental media at the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara. I wanted to clearly state that your artwork has been perhaps the most inspiring to me-- given all artists I have been exposed to in my 26 years of existence-- and has crystallized/visualized the process of my writing a lengthy manuscript entitled Question Reality: An Investigation of Self-Humans-Environment (www.lulu.com/questionreality). My questions are three-fold: (1) For future reference and budgeting of my time in graduate school, do you hold internships on a quarterly (10-week basis), and where specifically? (2) Do you have any galleries or hold any workshops in California (southern California more specifically), and (3) Would you be interested in a film interview in concern of the theme of art and the environment (also if I could feature your artwork in a planned music video entitled "Perceptual Relativity")?
Thank you so much for your time and attention,With much regards, Victoria Minnich, stokastika1@yahoo.com

Dr. Grey's wife (Alysson, I believe) is also a fractal artist, and his daughter Zena is very well networked in Hollywood. A red carpet figure.

222. "The Spine" for the Question Reality Manuscript

This took me another frickin' three hours or so. Okay, maybe two hours. But I ended up talking on the phone a wee bit. Woohoo. And I went to Trader Joes next door of Kinkos to get some really good REAL soy milk. The other day I purchased "Eighth Continent" soymilk with much regret. I felt like I was drinking medicine. But it's beside the point. The spine might have to change because the thickness of the manuscript will vary... So I am anticipating some shifts in the spine soon enough. Now to the back cover, which is MOST challenging.

221. Title Page for "Question Reality: An Investigation of Self-Humans-Environment"

I had a very strange conversation over the phone last Saturday night that shook me to the very barebones of my existence. Like I had been entirely figured out. That there was no longer any mystery. That I found out I was not the only one who was Questioning Reality. And then I was over it. I looked at my manuscript I have been sitting on for so long and said "Fxck it. Get this off your chest, Vic. It's over. I have been figured out. Everyone's Questioning Reality nowadays. I just formalized it in this writing here."

The most difficult part about self-publishing is book-ending the manuscript. You have to create the title page, the back page, the spine, and then all the little doo-hicky things in the middle, like a copyright page, devotions, prefaces, prefaces to prefaces, appendices, and appendices to appendices. That is the only thing I haven't done. Book end the dxm manuscript. It's already out of date. It was in date 2004-2005. I have evolved greatly since then.

Above is the title page series. And the basic drawings I made a couple of years ago. It took me a frickin 3 hours to make this frickin' title page. I mean, shoot me to a wall. I'm at a Kinkos off of Patterson in Goleta, California. I was chilling with a local band that just completed their debut album, Tommy and the High Pilots. They have a very feel-good classic rock. Young and restless types. But very classic. Will be playing Velvet Jones on June 15. They will be touring for a while. So, that made my experience in design a little less painless.

207. Poem / Song Mr. Inspiration, Supposed to be Partly Funny

Mr. Inspiration

Relieved me

From Mental Constipation

Believe me

He goes about Creatin'

Deceive me

Some Novel Passing Ways

So lead me

Monsieur Inspiration

Of Near-Divine

Resurrection

Of my Dormant Mind

of Demons

To Northern Lights

of Res'lution....

219. Resuming Communing with a Frickin' Computer Macbook Pro

Apple is based in Cupertino. Home of Jen. The Kingdom of Surburbania. Godzeeks. Kill me. American Beauty.

I have backup software from Oscar and Julio for these computers, but the problem is might need to get codes from the computer. I paid my dues for the software at the bookstore. Student prices. Sad though. Still over 1000. Should I put them on this computer or a giant desktop. Just do with what you have. You have to start experimenting somewhere. Too bad experiments have to be so expensive. Dxmmit.

Mac's have amazing "search" methods.

Microsoft Office ID is ... won't say.
New mac computer. The entire feel is like a new landscape. It's for multi-media. It's for art.

It has such a tiny slit to enter the CD or DVD. Geeze... First time EVER installing software on a mac, shxt.

I guess I am scared of Mac's because they seem infinite. I don't know what they know or don't know. I don't know what are the boundaries of Mac. I have a good sense of boundaries with the PC computer, but these macs still seem like an abyss.

And then Windows Vista came and made my sister's life HXLL. I gave her my sony vaio laptop for her birthday. That was 1600 back in the day. But it was a crxppy transition model from the 10 pound to 4 pound laptops... some detaching loading dock.

What the hxll.

Entourage is an email service and such. Used to be called, quark? Or
I just opened up a 600 dollar package. There is no going back.

Currently installing Adobe CS3. Might need some “codes” etcetera…

I just registered adobe CS3. It is daunting. Amazing. Powerful. Overwhelming to think I have this giant software program in my hands. I can create anything. And I have power to use this stuff all the time. I no longer have an excuse NOT to create. I am no longer technologically constrained. It's overwhelming. I have Photoshop. Then there's Adobe acrobat. You can compile forms, pdfs. Like for publishing a book. That is cool. And then there's combining files, exporting them, review and commenting on files, all sorts of interesting stuff. Then there's adobe bridge that bridges all types of files from one software program to another. Whoever made this software is on dope.

The only way to move backwards in time is to MOVE FORWARD. Expand what your box can be, and then you clutch more to your past. :-)

I guess the goal here is to open each software program. Briefly fiddle with it. Know it's basic purpose, then move on with stuff. Bridge is for managing media "visually." Which is cool.

Computer has a mini firewire and a big firewire. Then there is Adobe Device Central, which is to design, preview, and test engaging mobile content. Like stuff for cell phone. uh huh. well. i haven't gotten there. Adobe Dreamweaver for making websites. ~#~ sees this as a chore. Maybe he can teach me some stuff, how he works with stuff. Then there's some Adobe extension manager. Which I don't know what that is. Maybe for adding plug-ins to existing software. "Extending," so to speak. Ha ha ha. It's interesting they have all this software and the logos are like they are from some Chemistry Periodic Table.

Brilliant user friendly interface and tutorials. Get the most for what you've bought.

It looks like I am going to have to start going to those tutorials at UCSB. Free. Trains you how to use the software. And then I can get chummy with my computer. He he. I had a quick training with a graduate student from the Media Arts Technology Department on Flash. He's cute. Used to be macromedia flash, bought out by adobe. Predictable. He still sends out emails every once in a while. Graham Wakefield is his name. Does experimental acoustivisual stuff. MAT Department is cool and they might get into acoustivisual stuff associated with environmental scale. They work a lot at nanotechnology scales--even neuroscience scales--simply because they have lots of grant funding. But to Joann Kuchera-Morin, at all scales, it's all the same though it seems different.

It seemed like my getting into graduate school at UCSB was interviewing a bunch of professors with different viewpoints. I wished I could film the process. It was very much like the film Waking Life.

So, I have to review how to use flash. Shxt. There are tutorials in the CDs provided. And also stuff on youtube.

There's also some Adobe Flash Video encoder. Adobe help viewer. God.

I guess using this software is just like my starting poetry. The first 100 things you create with this software is CRXP. And then the 101st project is superb. I feel like I am starting from scrap. A baby all over again. Shxt.

There's also Adobe Help Viewer. It's where you got to ask questions. Need help in anything. Most importantly is you need to create basic workflow within all these software programs. Then every single time, you are experimental and add new things. This is what you do late at night. Ridiculous things like this. Experimenting with your new software. Experimenting until you become Master of Space and Time.

Aha. I have an older version of Adobe Illustrator. Better for graphic design. Vector over raster. Can become infinitely small or infinitely large, not lose resolution. Cool stuff. Difference between GIS and Adobe art is that GIS is visual mapping of stuff but you are able to map data on visual landscape layers. Not a big deal. Adobe (or Microsoft) could create that easily.

Now have Adobe Illustrator on. Coolio. Kind of a good acquaintance. It is amazing how I make complete and utter analogies getting to know a new place or a new technology, is very much like learning a new person. Starting from scrap. Adding layers that build over time. And some people and places and technologies (family, friends, Santa Barbara, Photoshop) you choose to invest in fully, and other people and places you don't dig yourself so deep. It's not worth the investment. Like Los Angeles, or even Illustrator. Or even a roommate. But maybe they are worth knowing more. It's all about digging deep into the rabbit hole. How far are you willing to go?

It's funny. People socialize with technology, rather than other people. Well, when I am on the computer, it is the opportunity to commune with my own brain. I need to do that. That is good. But I can get bored of my own brain.

Now the great Adobe Indesign. Woohoo. Page layouts. Designing of magazines and newspapers and the works. I am SO excited. I can't wait to get to "know" Indesign, as if he or she were my right-brained buddy.

Oh ya. Other software too. What is aperture. It's some photo software in the computer. There's also AppleScript. Automator. Calculator. Chess. Dashboard. Dictionary. DVD player. Useful. Might need to download quicktime. Expose. What is that? Just plays DVD. They also have iDVD. Whew. Expose just darkens the dashboard. Okay. There's an entire font book. Cool. This software is all under Macintosh HD, and then "applications." Front row. Something to deal with movies. Not interested. Then the infamous garageband, must learn to use better. So simple. Create new music project. Even create a new podcast episode.

Garageband is built in midi. You can basically painstakingly compose a piece by punching in code. Anyone can do this. How come NOT everyone is doing this? Creating their own shxt. Busy consuming? Watching TV. I don't get it.

There's iCal. I California. iCalendar. Scary. I am not going to use it. There's iChat. You can talk to people through a screen. Scary. iDVD. iPhoto. Image capture. One second. That seems fun. Oh. You need an image capture device connected. Then there's iMovie. iMovie is a VERY simple version of final cut pro, but VERY good to have. iPhoto is for organizing photographs.

Mac's are very integrated. PCs are fragmented. Julie Ekstrom type of talk, eh?

iSync is for syncing up devices. iTunes and iWeb I am already familiar with. I now have iWeb, which Dave Panitz trained us on how to make a website from last year. Then there's iWork. Still don't know what that is. Email. Microsoft office 2008. entourage. excel. powerpoint. word. microsoft messenger. yuck. Photobooth that is what Maria, UC Leads Riverside has in her computer. It's amazing shxt. I can't believe I have it. Will be lots of fun. Take whacky pictures of things, right from your computer! You can even do videos and then upload them on Youtube! Whoa shxt.

Preview is for "previewing" pictures. Quicktime player is already downloaded. Good. Safari is how to surf the internet.

They also have "virtual stickies" ha ha.

Some apple diagnostic CD vic did NOT get.

Then there's system preferences. personal appearance. desktop and screensaver. dock. expose and spaces. international. security. spotlight. bluetooth cds and dvds. displays. energy saver. keyboard and mouse. print and fax. sound. aha. i am starting to figure out the borders and parameters of this computer.

For internet there is .mac, network, quicktime, sharing.

Then there are system accounts. Date and time. Parental controls. Ha ha. Software update. Speech. Startup disk. Time machine. Universal access. Vision cuew CS3. Classified under "other" of system preferences.

Each window has some shadow effect. Crazy.

Then there's text edit. Which is like microsoft notepad. It's only been 8 years and there has been revolution in technology, exploding in my face as soon as I got into college. Shxt!

Time Machine is a back-up data and work mechanism. Need an external drive though. Maybe. Need to turn it off or on.

Then there's a "utilities" folder. The last folder of Applications. Includes activity monitor. Adobe installers. Adobe utilities. airport utility. AUDIO MIDI SETUP. aha. IAC driver for midi devices. Aha. Can add an external device. Aha.

Continuing. Bluetooth file exchange. Boot camp assistant. I could use one of those. bootcamp helps you install microsoft windows xp or windows vista operating systems (booo) on an intel-based mac computer. how lame. would never do that.

Now some color sync utility. Console messages. Digital color meter. Directory is for looking for things. Disk utility is for the HD? Fujitsu stuff. Matshita stuff. Something called a grapher. You can MAKE GRAPHS 2 or 3d. Very useful stuff. WOW. Like micro matlab or something. Have to type in my bioxyzbum password.

Then there's this Java folder. Javaweb start. Whoa shxt. Cache is empty. Keychain access. Who has access to the computer, I guess. Migration assistant helps migrate files from one computer to another. Network utility. What the hxll is a "ping"?

I told ~#~ last night my mac computer seems daunting and limitless. I do not know it's boundaries yet. I am starting to feel better. ODBC administrator. Something called Podcast Capture. Let's you EASILY RECORD AND DISTRIBUTE PODCASTS. Check out later.

Raid utility. No RAID card installed. System profiler. HAS EVERYTHING YOU WOULD POSSIBLY WANT TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR MAC. Codes and specks and all. Oh shxt.

Terminal. Funky code. Is that like DOS for windows? Like the "underground" code that generates all these visualizations? Ya. It does all this "command" stuff.

There's a voice over utility. general. verbosity. speech. navigation. web. sound.

If the world were ruled by dogs, we would have smellevision and smelleputers, or nostrilputers or chemiputers. I need to find more geeky "nasal" oriented words. If the world were ruled by bats, wow, we would have sonarvision or something like that.

Navigation. Web. Sound. Visual. Numpad. Braille. Even braille.

Wow, it's so true. The parallel is super precise. Getting to know a human versus getting to know a place versus getting to know a piece of technology. All the same. Starting from scrap. Holistically. X11 xterm. More programming of shxt. C++ and the works.

Adobe teamed up with http://www.lynda.com/ for video tutorials on how to use all this flippin' frickin software! Sheesh!!!

Adobe creative suite, two more CDs to look through. Figure out what's on them. Then need to reflect on my own shxt of stuff. Workflow process.

Why film is so powerful. Because it creates a TRIBAL COMMUNITY within a large interdependent system. Intimiate interaction and then you can scale out this tribal personality out into the world to see.

The content DVD definitely has all these "workflow" and instruction manuals in them. Adobe used to be GoLive but adopted Dreamweaver. They flopped GoLive.

I joked with the computer guy at the UCSB bookstore, as soon as I pay my 600 bucks for this software, it will become out of date 3 seconds from now. Like shxt.

Adobe gave some free stock photography. I mean "free" in quotes.

There's one image of the bloge, planet earth overlaid with stock exchange, economics, and this one is overlaidwith computer chip netowrks. Very CLEVER. Something I want to do in perceptual relativity.

I told Scott Chatenever that it seems like ever since I wrote my manuscript, I came to meet a lot of very interesting people. And I will say that the people who were the MOST OPEN AND WILLING TO LISTEN were THOSE READY TO RETIRE and THOSE WHO JUST STARTED THEIR PROFESSIONAL CAREER. Those just starting are RISK TAKERS and are willing to do something "OUT THERE" to break into the arena of adulthood incumbency and acceptance. Those who are about to retire ARE READY TO THROW IN THE TOWEL and REALLY PISSED OFF that they are throwing in the towel when so many problems continue to exist. Hence, coming to Oran Young. He is about to retire, but he wants to leave his mark. Leave an open door for a brighter future. So he took on me and Alexios and Julie as environmental media students.

Adobe gave lots of free stock photos. They have corporate art down pat. I think my sunflower will be wonderful corporate art. It's a matter of hooking up with the right people. Sigh.

Even some free, extra fonts. Goody!

It's funny. How long have I had "Adobe Creative Suite" on my to-do list. And finally. Something so deep rooted and technologically stifling has been scratched off my list! Now Adobe Creative Suite total training. Aha!

The last thing I am looking at here is the picture workbook. Can't wait to put this away. I can only learn so much about a computer in one day. What is Adobe Fireworks? Extra animation for websites, I guess.

When I see the world, I first see the world in pictures and sounds. It keeps sorting and organizing things. But then afterwards my slow left brain trails around, trying to pick up these pictures and sounds, eh? Ya.

Art? Commercial. Economized. Eh? I can't believe they have software to design shxt for cell phones. Believe me, I am NOT that attached.

Chase design. Director worked with Sonny and Cher.

It seems like my research is commodified. Environment commodified. Aesthetic. Everyone else's work is my play. And my work is everyone else's play. That is called human ecological tourism.

Gee and Chung design. For various non-profit groups and such. Multi-disciplinary. Web and environmental design for technology oriented clients. That would be COOL to do an internship with these people. Environmental design firm. With clients and such. I try to have a home-made component in mine.

Seems like most major firms are partners. Two extremely creative people meet and make their own reality. aha. Another one Adams Morioka. It's cool Adobe adds these people.

Maybe one day Vic should go to an Environmental Media / Environmental design conference. I am assuming it would be very inspiring.

Dreamweaver and widgets. Shxt. Adobe is based in San Jose, California. Well. I think I can do a lot of this stuff. It's just a matter of learning the software. I need a break from novelty. Clean up the "old' around me.

218. Biologically Incorrect Principle of Graduate School Survival (Graduate Studentisms): Special Brownies and Grant Deadlines

I found in the kitchen last night a special batch of pot brownies. I couldn't help thinking how this epitomizes one vital ingredient towards graduate school survival. I don't do any pot. But nearly everyone around me gets stoned every once in a while. A friend of mine told me how can pot be bad when you ultimately can get your shxt done when smoking it. Alcohol will usually now allow you to function!

I already get ADHD from consuming sugar and I have coffee chronically. One more element towards Biologically Incorrect the movie!

Walking on the Edge of a Mental Cliff:
Making a Friday Grant Deadlines by 2 Minutes!!!

I've spent my Fridays in much better ways. I stayed up till 2am last night. I accidentally slept in till 830 am because my cell phone died, and so went my alarm. I woke up in a panic, and took till 11 to finish the rough draft. I worked and worked and worked, as if I were puking out
years worth of stale Mexican food from my stomachbrain. And then I printed what I could print, given the compounding time I had. And I zoomed to school 10 miles per hour over the speed limit the whole way through. The signals at intersections were horrendously impeding my desperate 80-mile-per-hour train of thought. I parked illegally, and jumped out of the car, pressed the elevator button five times, until the door opened. My cell phone alarm rang in the elevator around the second floor: I had three minutes left. And before I knew it, I was on the 6th floor, greeted by an elder, amused man at the door. I handed him my grant application, with two minutes to spare from the 5 o'clock deadline. And he asked me with a shrewd smile, "So you must be the last one to slip it in time?" I shrugged, "I guess so." Then I smiled, "And if there is any stunt, daredevil, edge-of-cliff-walking in my life, it probably shall only manifest itself with the mental: grant deadlines with seconds to go!" The man, resuming his grin, scanned through the materials, nodded with approval, and shut the office door behind him. I left the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center with a huge sigh of guilty, unfulfilling relief, declaring myself a hypocrite, for all I did was concoct a document my mental xss about all the things I was going to do, not reflect upon all the things I've done. And that is the dilemma of university funding. People dozing off about what they're going to do... and how much, truly, has anyone really done? But I am my own island of principles. I'm determined to make tangible truths out of floating thoughts. Only time--the cumulative effects of my own chugging daily grinds--will let me know whether my boastful ideals become well-received been-theres and done-thats.

217. Communing with My New MacBook Pro Computer, 15 inch, from UCSB Bookstore

I don't know why Karl, one of my housemates, was giving me a funny smile. He was working with his lab partner--from Europe?--downstairs on a Thursday evening with research.
I just finished griping to Julie--my housemate who's about to move out to go to Stanford *sigh*--about recent experiences, and now I face the dreaded task of opening up the Macbook pro box.
I bought the computer a while back--maybe a month--but still haven't opened it.
It's like starting from scrap. Like exploring a new planet, getting dumped into a new country with a new language and new people (or new aliens)... and trying to figure out everything all over again. But I know macs to some degree, from last summer's Blue Horizons program.
I know it's going to be a new reality.
My first response is how is something SOOO SMALL going to be able to edit a giant, big rock crab film. Not feasible.
I am already meditating on purchasing a used Mac G5 or the like. I have to check out what UCSB's Digital Editing Lab has.
At least I have this one for portability issues. I am thankful.
But I am clogged and I am quickly getting buried with rock crab data, so it is vital I pursue the opening of the dreaded packaging and endless instruction manuals. *sigh*
To my surprise, macs are so simply beautiful and super-user friendly. From design to manuals.
"Congratulations, you anre your MacBook Pro were made for each other." That was just the first page of the manual.

"This is just the beginning of a beautiful relationship." Some famous movie lines.

Wow. All I can tell is that Mac people up in Silicon Valley really know how stupid people are. Including myself. They talk so simple, they just suck you in slowly to complexity. Those... computer geeks DO have some eusocial skills.

Here I am, the peak of modern civilization, communing with a frickin' computer for social hour... and not even another human being.

I have a computer, isight camera (scary, video chat, simple video), time machine, imovie, iphoto, garageband, iweb (no shxt).

Mac ilife, standardized. How come macs are resistant to viruses and PCs get viruses up the wazoo?

They basically designed the instruction manual as if you are communicating with another human being for coffee, which is interesting, given that it is a book, and it's a piece of strange metal conglomate called a "computer."

All this cool music to relax you. Doesn't he have some kind of group project due. GIS?
Welcome collage with cool soft music. High stress to fun.
Don't worry, Vic. Go around 5pm.

Okay. I am already having fun. I get to take pix of myself with the dxm computer. Shxt ya. I am looking high above in the sky. The lighting got good as soon as I put the lighting above my head, and it had dramatic shadows. My arm was extended up, making a diagonal. I was looking high in the sky. At first I was above the camera looking down, but that was ominous, ogresome, like I had an ego complex. I decided I wanted to be humble and at the bottom of the picture, extending upward. I then lifted the lamp for better lighting above my head than below. Below I look horrible. Yuck. But this is all standard lighting technique. They always have lighting "above" in those make-up commercials. It was a very sharp contrast picture. Pretty creative! Woohoo!

I am supposed to be purchasing a .mac. You get to share movies and photos online. Publish an iweb website, ad-free imap email, sync important info across macs, access mac from any other mac on the internet. SCARY. share and ad back up documents with disk. Get 10 GB of online storage. All scary. Not going to buy now.

Fine print. email is stokastika@mac.com, 100MB online storage. email server is mail.mac.com and SMTP server is smtp.mac.com. Expires July 21, 2008. Not a lot of time. Shxt. Portal is http://www.mac.com. My .mac member name is now my Apple ID. No longer evoterre@yahoo.com. It's now stokastika@mac.com. "You can use it the next time you make purchases on iTunes or the online Apple Store. Maybe the computer name is still EVOTERRE.

"Enjoy using your Apple computer and Mac OS X."

Software already being updated. There's hardly any startup time. WHOA. It just turns on bam like that! Supposedly 200 GBs here.

I just finished this "black box" of instruction manuals. Simple. User friendly shxt.

I do something new, and then I do something old. I have had enough of my new computer right now. I am now making a mirror box for the rock crab film. Miriam will be very pleased....

239 bucks for apple care protection plan. OH shxt.

Didn't get the other scholarships for the Santa Barbara Writer's Conference, but they were largely need-based.

Then I fell asleep.

216. World's Easiest Catch, Interview Question List for Phil Freeman, Fisherman

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/philfreeman1.pdf
Above is the question list for Phil Freeman, bona fide rock crab fisherman. I adopted the question list a bit differently from Charlie (academic-oriented fisherman), but it took me quite a while to finalize what questions I wanted to ask. Every question list I make is like writing some kind of essay. I hope to interview him soon!

I just have to keep reminding myself, as Martin Kennedy would say: "It's not about finding the right answers, it's about asking the right questions."

214. Quote of the Day by Victoria and Lauren Wilson

In response to my saying, some fishermen or scuba divers at UCSB didn't want to be interviewed because they said that their stories are all "anecdotal" and non-scientific. And brilliant Lauren said, "Well, ALL stories are anecdotal!"

What sheer brilliance! All stories are anecdotal, even scientific stories... because science cannot collect all data, everything is a subset of Reality, supposedly having some representative meaning of the entirety of Reality. Scientific stories are like anecdotal conglomerates of smaller subsets of anecdotes. It's like some kind of hierarchy of anecdotes. Ha, ha, ha!

213. Protected Fetus Artwork, by Anonymous in Denial

Anonymous in Denial, my roommate, writes, "It is interesting to learn the structure of the male mind versus the structure of the female mind. What types of visions and creativity he has versus she has. For example, a female mind would write a detailed nuance movie like Lost in Translation, and a male would create a crass film like Superbad. Each gender appreciates the other film, but in terms of obsessing over creating a film like Superbad, I would never find the subject of high school students getting alcohol and getting laid their first time before college to be anything to create a movie about. I have no motivation.

I am assuming males are more creative in certain aspects of human relations in which females are less creative, but in other aspects, females can be more creative than males. It depends. In terms of a female's needs, I encapsulated it in a drawing series called Protected Fetus. The desire for the illusion of safety. The desire to be held and hugged until she feels relaxed enough to go venture out into the world again, and tense up with the usual anxieties of daily life. Then she runs back to the 'Squeeze Box,' as an autistic animal scientist would say (this scientist relates better to animals rather than humans). I wonder if a male drew something of what he wanted in terms of touch and the concept of safety from another person, what would he draw?

I told someone I made this fall quarter. It is spring quarter, 6 months later. Predestination, I suppose. He laughed."

212. Sample Visual Continuity Exercises with Kamron Sackolov, World's Easiest Catch

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/visualcontinuityexercisesamplekamron.pdf

Included here is a separate sheet of "visual continuity" exercises.... "Plastic crab versus real rock crab" is not included. I gave Kamron a plastic crab and he didn't respond well. I gave him a real crab, and he was SO ELATED! That worked unexpectedly well. I managed to do all exercises with Kamron except for the cognitive map "me box," which I might have to do on someone else in the house, mabye even Scott Chatenever. I managed to do all the exercises with Kamron, and he was REALLY patient with me to deal with all of it. I am trying to make all interviews under one hour, but I don't seem to be too successful at doing that. Kamron's is going to be by far one of the coolest interviews in all of this.


From now on, I will have visual continuity exercises printed separately from the interview question list, such that I won't intimidate or scare off any of the interviewers. These exercises are VERY SIMPLE, they just look complicated on paper.

211. The Making of Bumper Sticker, "Stop Modeling Climate! Start Modeling Human Behavior!"

These are some "pre-drawings" in progress. Not all of them, though.

210. Bumper Sticker: Stop Modeling Climate, Start Modeling Human Behavior

I told this to Scott Chatenever (engineer and artist) last night: "If you want to change the environment, stop modeling climate and start modeling human behavior!" And today, those words stuck out like an eyesore. ~#~ again inspired me to do art, so this morning manifested a much-needed bumper sticker for academia. Environmental scientists need to transform their mentality from "denial science" to "interactive science." Becoming players, not intellectual bystanders.

As was most eloquently stated by ~#~, the mission statement of environmental scientists in general: "to save the world... after we collect MORE data."

I'll send this to my dad, ~#~, and Scott. Fun, fun!