2008 was a good year. The first half of the year was wonderful and included a trip to London and Montreal for my 40th birthday. I did lots of photography, some of which will be printed in the new Unhallowed Metropolis book. I rekindled my love of punk rock by seeing one of my favorite bands of all times, Flipper. I also saw Ohgr in what was a wonderful show. I got to shoot all my rifles with my friends and did some WW2 re-enactment. I went to Burning Man and ended the year with a trip back to my old stomping grounds in OKC.



2008 Yearly Goals

1. Go to either London or Rome. - I went to London and saw lots of neat stuff. Saw the sights. I went to museums. It was a constant week of seeing things in person that I've been seeing on TV my entire life. I even got a photo shoot out of it.

2. Go to a foreign music festival. - I had a choice between Treffen or Kinetik and decided to go with Kinentik festival in Montreal because I'd never been there and because friends were going. I had poutine and had lots of fun despite being completely dead since I hit it on the way back from London.

3. Work on Studio/Photography. - I got lights, ladders, and a curtain to block outside light making the studio a place I can shoot in anytime. The one thing we still lack is a sandwich board but I think we may get that under control soon.

4. Clean my room. - Didn't get it cleaned really, but I did move upstairs into a real room, get a dresser, and aquired some art. My living situation is now a little less college-like. I still require a real bed to finish though and I've been putting it off due to the cost.


2009 Yearly Goals

1. Get a motorcycle - I've thought about getting one for a while. So this year, I've decided to get a motorcycle, learn to ride one, and get the license. Ideally, I'd like a BSA WD20 so I could get the British WW2 dispatch rider uniform and ride it at re-enactments, but that would be a serious investment for a vintage bike that I probably wouldn't want to ride around town, putting miles on the vintage engine.

2. Learn to swing dance. - I like lounge nights at the Merc and there are simply too many women in need of partners not to learn.

3. Go to 4th of Juplaya - Spend 4th of July weekend in the Black Rock Desert camping. This is more what Burning Man used to be when I would hear about it. Driving across the desert, shooting guns, and blowing things up. Maxx and Kristan are going as well as friends from Spike's, so I figure I'd make this my travel for the year. I almost want to see if I can get my old truck, Volis, back from Rusty to drive down there.

4. Learn to can - Otherwise, I'd probably just be content with quick pickling my vegetables and never do it properly. This way, I'll actually get the pressure cooker and be able to put up some asparagus or green beans properly when they end up being cheap. I actually turned down my great grandma Tedford's pressure canner over Christmas. Besides not being able to get it home, it was just too small and not able to do quart jars like I want to do.

The last of my photos from Burning Man ( I should have more but my major 'taking pictures day' was interrupted by a major dust storm so I only got about half the photos I meant to) are from my other camp, Spike's Vampire Bar. I found Spike's the year they opened and became a regular very quickly. It was in center camp about three camps away from Hardware and was one of three places where I could hear music I like (seriously, I think Burning Man is an experiment in playing bad music) as they played gothic/industrial and hard rock. They only served red wine out of blood bags and didn't require any "barter" which was still sort of new for the time at )'(. They had a small dance floor (my only complaint about Spike's) with a stripper pole and wanted to give everybody a chance to dance. It was a nice little bar and I always ended the burn night by closing it down in the morning. I even camped with them one year when it didn't look like Hardware or anybody else I knew would be going. I did so for the last time this year as it will not be returning as a camp as all things must come to and end.



Most of these are just pictures of the people in the camp and I post them for completeness.

Here are the photos from Sparks Night at this year's Burning Man. Sparks Night is the night that Black Rock City Hardware breaks out the grinders and fire toys and has some fun. We moved it from Tuesday to Thursday for good effect, especially considering that we were facing center camp this year. Luke and our new people brought some new ideas and a an oxy torch. I think that's got the creative juices flowing and hopefully next year or before that in Seattle, we should have some new ideas to display.

Here's the beginning of the Burning Man photos.


The Man




Our Camp
This was our camp and our truck. We didn't get to cover up our truck logos because one of the first customers we had was a guy looking for shade structure material and we ended up giving him the cammo netting we were to use to cover up the Penske logo. Next door was our friends Bike Rock City who were open a grand total of about two hours a day for three days. They still did more bike repairs that we possibly did and it was all tires by people who didn't bring any spares with them.


Flaming Lotus Girls Art
Got to see this before it opened up and all the work that went into it. The plumbing for all of these was amazing. The idea being that these were alien pods that had sprouted in the desert and were trying to communicate to the humans around them through fire. The controls to make the fire shoot out of them were built into the individual sculptures and controlled by the people standing around.


The Temple


Giant remote controlled hand that picks up cars and crushes them. Controlled by a glove that the operator wears, the hand mimics the movements of the wearer and was used to crush a car which can be seen on the ground below.

Art car in the shape of a horse.

Arachnophobia, one of the other goth/industrial dance clubs/bars on the playa.

It's an art car.

One of the larger large scale sound installations (ie dance clubs) one the playa. This is the one we call the "base farm" because it's where they grow all the base to be harvested and used for music thoughout the world. This was its last year on the playa from what I hear.

Hummer art installation.

Giant Jungle gym.

Babylon

All of the generic photos.

Still to come are stories as well as pictures from Sparks Night and Spike's.

At the request of an old friend and because I've been planning to do it anyway, I've begun scanning and posting all my old photos from Oklahoma. The first batch is up which includes some from 1990 and my "gothic 23rd b-day party". Now I just need help figuring out who is who after all these years. The above is me, with my mohawk, and my leather jacket painted back in 1990.

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Second batch is up. Vanity shots for my 'zine. The Punknic, and David Patton's b-day party.
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Third batch is up.

Forth Batch is up.

Every year, I decide on some goals to do for the next year. Usually something that needs to be done or I have never done. Travel to new places is a big one as I'd like to go to a new country every year. It's now time to go over past years goals and then set those for 2008.

From 2006:
Work on Websites - Still haven't done this one. I have something like five or six domains. Some are full of photos. They all could use some work and need to be properly organized and updated.

From 2007:

1. Complete my Games - I worked on some RPGs I was making fairly hard the first few months of the year and then dropped off. One of the main causes was that the games were an excuse to take photos in several various genres and my opportunities to take those photos, mostly of people in my WW2 re-enactment group, have not panned out.

2. Birthday Party - I didn't quite have a b-day party I was planning but I did start the Kascadia Art Show that will be continuing again this year.

3. Photostudio - I wanted to use the photostudio I started renting more this year. I've only shot in it twice, but I've used it every artwalk as well as for various parties. Overall, I consider this one a success.

4. Go to GenCon - I went to GenCon, had fun, met people, and had a good trip. It was something I'd always wanted to do since high school and finally got to do.

For 2008:

1. Go to either London or Rome. - It's my 40th birthday and I want to get out and do something big. So it's off to either London or Rome. In London I would do photos for Unhallowed Metropolis as there are so many landmarks only available there. I'd have to arrange models and stuff and it would be lots of work but fun and productive. In Rome, I'd just be a tourist and go look at all the Roman ruins. While in Europe, I'd probably also try and drop into Germany and visit my cousin who lives there with his family who is having medical issues. Not sure if I could do all three or not. People who were planning on going that shaped my interest seem to be dropping out.

2. Go to a foreign music festival. - This would either be Treffen or the Kenetic Festival in Canada. I've already been to Treffen, lots of friends are going to the Kenetic Festival, some of the bands I wanted to see at Treffen are playing at the Kenetic festival. So, think are looking like I might have to head back fro Europe and stop off in Canada for a music festival there. I'd probably hurry up and get tickets and maybe work on a photopass.

3. Work on Studio/Photography. - Basically, to be used for what I need to do, the studio needs work. It needs curtains to block light, I need my own studio lights, and there are several other things that need to be done before I can actually get people into the studio and shoot effectivly. Since I use the studio already and could use it more, getting this stuff done would be a great advantage.

4. Clean my room. - No seriously. I'm getting old and still living like a college student. I sleep on a futon and all my furniture is picked up ad hoc from various places. Some if it is full of stuff I don't even use and probably never will. I need to buy some nice grown up furniture, perhaps a matching set, get rid of some stuff that I will never use, organize the stuff I want to keep, clean, and make it presentable. Furnishing the room with a real carpet, ceiling, and walls would be nice, but although I lived there 10 years now (and have 10 years of built up detrius), it would have been worth it to put that sort of money into it back then, now, I live from year to year swearing I'm going to move out of that cold apartment next year. Buying a house by myself seems like a pipe dream in the Seattle market, and the apartment I live in now is large and in the perfect location as I can effectively walk almost everywhere I ever need to go including work and downtown.

Looks like I've got the Mnemonic Gallery again this May for an artshow and artwalk and am beginning my look for artists to show in it. The theme of Kascadia is dark arts and things bizarre, morbid, or otherwise unsettling. This includes most media including performaces which I can probably get Starfish Studios for. So if you'd like to show art, have an artist I should contact, or would like to help, here's the place to let me know.

The show would be May 1st, first Thursday, and set up the days prior to that. We can probably set up the weekend before. Art can stay up for the rest of the month, but really, after artwalk, nobody's going to see it (unless I have a private party the weekend before for my birthday or something) and can be taken down late during artwalk. Other artist info can be answered on request.

Here are some of the color photos from the photo shoot we had last Friday. Theme was mad scientists. We had a couple of them plus lots of playing with Rusty's fire toys and watching him build fires. Some guys also showed up and made us a Jacob's ladder, although it didn't get into any of these shots it was fun to watch. Several other shots, I plan to work on some more and post in B&W like they would be done for UnMet.