My sister asked me to make a ‘relaxing mix’ for the birth of her first child – so I  plopped Enya’s Watermark album in it (sans Storms in Africa and a couple other strong songs) and conjured up some easy listening tunes to bookend the Enya songs. Just listening to it nearly put me to sleep.

Usually my ‘mixed’ CDs are just that: mixed. So hopefully by putting a big block of Enya in there I didn’t upset the natural order of things. I used to listen to that album when I was going to sleep on my Army cot while deployed to Haiti. I would just fall asleep and then the Storms in Africa song with it’s loud thunderclaps and rain would half wake me up. I’d do the same thing with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album: listen to it while going to sleep (in Haiti) and be awoken by all the alarm clocks going off at the start of  Time. . .seesh.

So now the second relaxing mix will be just that, a mix with no big blocks of one artist. . .but most of the slow easy listening music is either so depressing or . . .well, in short supply. I’ve got 14 songs thus far, and only need about 6 more (give or  take a few minutes) to fill up a CD.

That is when I thought of it. Imagine 18 years from now, when Robert William is just about to turn 18 and leave for college and finds this old dusty CD in his mom’s closet. . .and somehow he manages to find a way to play it and listen to it. A moment in time frozen on a CD, what his mom was listening to while she was in labor with him. Will he know any of the songs? Will music be so different 18 years in the future that the CD sounds like a mess of noise and sound that just causes him a headache, and confuses him with the handwritten sharpie marker title of “Vanessa’s Relaxing Mix 2007″?

Work has been. . .crazy lately. Trying to keep up with a huge project, that just keeps snowballing into an ever larger mass.  The customer keeps calling requesting new items or changes to previously turned in items. . .gah.  So while I’m trying to do all of that, I’ve got another big customer whose parts I’ve got to take care of.

I can’t believe that tomorrow is Friday already.  I’ve been doing so much stuff for this project, that it feels like I’ve done nothing else all week. . .

And then yesterday I get home to find a notice from the complex that work will be done in my building to replace the current boiler with a new boiler and that they’d be giving us 24 hour notice of when they were going to start. Wrapped up with that notice is the next notice: our building will be getting it’s new boiler tomorrow. The workers would arrive at 8am to start by shutting off the heat and hot water.

Thanks for the less then 24 hour notice that I’m going to have no heat at the end of November. I guess I should consider myself lucky that the powers that be have decided to do it now rather then in January.

The notice also says that the workers should be done by end of business that same day.

Heh.

So guess what I find when I come home today? A large blue tarp over the boiler room area, several large trucks parked in our parking area and along the curb and workers milling about. That was 4 hours ago. Guess who is still here? And do I have hot water?

If you guess the workers and no, then you’d be correct. They did their “clean” up, at one point removing the large blue tarp and allowing the super bright flood lights to shine in my bedroom window (there’d be no way I’d get asleep with that sun coming through my window blinds) and talking about how were they supposed to do clean up when the other workers left and took the buckets with them. . .

At least it looks like there is steam coming out of the boiler room, and perhaps the boiler is coming online and heating up some water for us. And at least the apartment isn’t cold ~ for if the heat is off, I can’t really tell.

I just hope they get the hot water fixed before I take my shower in the morning. . .and I sure hope they aren’t milling around under my window talking when I’m trying to go to sleep, for these guys are pretty vocal.

Ahh, Futurama. 4 seasons played on Fox, and I caught them when they came out on Fox, and when it was canceled I brought all the DVD sets. In fact, I brought season 3 twice (only ’cause the person that borrowed it from me never returned it. But I digress.).  I’ve watched the shows over and over again, with the  commentary on and with the commentary off.

Then I heard rumors that the show was coming back. I didn’t know when, and I didn’t know how – just that it would be in the future. So when I saw this interview with David X. Cohen, and that the DVD was being released today, I was thrilled:

So I stopped at the local Target today, and looked for the DVD. Not around. Umm. I walked down to the local Bestbuy, and they had many copies – with a sticker that said it had an exclusive bonus disk. Umm. Got me what is up with that, and I don’t feel like googling any info on it. But the exclusive bonus disk has storyboard animatics, layout animatics, a sneak peak at the next movie:

I’ve watched the dvd and enjoyed it. I’m not going to rehash the plot, if you want spoilers, here you go. Lets just say that if you are a fan of the original series, you’ll dig the movie. There are enough call backs and new jokes to keep you laughing. Pretty much every main character and most of the side characters show up (except Mom, only a cameo, but not much else). Well worth the $15 or so I paid at BestBuy for it.

So yesterday I put the bike to sleep for the winter. A hibernation during the cold snowy winter New England winter.

I drove the 10 miles to get some fuel stablizer stuff that monring. It was 40 deg F, and I bundled up with 5 different layers for my torso, and two for my legs: thermal underwear, tee shirt (short & long sleeve), jacket liner, long wool skiing socks, etc. I wore my thin leather gloves rather then my thick heavy duty Army winter gloves. My fingers were fine. I didn’t wear my face mask – I didn’t really feel like I needed it. Sure, my eyes watered a bit, and my cheeks got a bit red, but I like the feeling of the crisp air. I passed one other biker on my way that morning: it looked like the red saddlebags guy, but I couldn’t really  tell. He didn’t have his usual full face mask on if it was him. But the bike looked like his.

My tank was almost empty, so I filled her up and mixed in the required fuel stablizer. Later that afternoon I rode her down to my friend’s house to put her in his garage.  The ride down was nice, it was in the high 40s and not cold with my layers on. It was fun passing through the clouds of leaves, riding some small localized gusts of wind, making a live snow globe with fall colors.

This one road down to his house is all twists and curves: a little two lane back road, that luckily for me didn’t have much traffic. I leaned into the corners as hard as I could, with a huge grin on my face the entire time. Enjoying the last ride of the season.

It was amazing out today: 68 deg F was the highest I saw online. I went out for a ride on the bike with no thermal underwear and no gloves. There was a breeze blowing pretty heavily but it was a warm gust.

Plus with it being Thanksgiving Day today there was very little in the way of traffic on the streets. I decided to go to the Mayflower II ship in Plymouth Harbor just to take a look see. I stopped at a beach just north of the ship and enjoyed the quiet and the scenery for a bit:

I got back on the bike and headed to the ship (which you can barely see in the above picture, but easier to see in the larger version of that picture). The area around the ship was packed with people. In fact, the area around the “rock” was crowded as well with people lined up on the hill on the other side. Instead of stopping to look around, I just continued on. I didn’t want to have to deal with the crowd.

So today I was either eating or riding the bike in super nice weather. A great way to spend a day off.

I don’t know how much longer I’ll be riding this season so I’m trying to pack as many days in as I can. So when I saw that it was 33 deg F and dry roads this morning with only a 20% chance of rain, I decided to ride in to work. I put on my thermal underwear (tops and bottoms), both layers of my jacket and headed out. I decided not to wear my face mask, with my thermal underwear top zipped up it formed a shield for my neck and chin. Good enough.

I put on my thick super heavy winter gloves on and started the bike. She took some coaxing this morning to get up and going. But eventually we got out the main gate and were off to work. The ride in was not that cold, and I got to see some beautiful scenery on the way in while having fun riding in.

As we were leaving the restaurant during lunch time, my friend exclaimed “it’s snowing!” Bah, I said, it looks more like hail.

It wasn’t collected on the ground at all, but bouncing around on it before finally melting. Small white hail balls about .025″ in diameter. Small things, but big enough to be seen bouncing around. Bah, I repeated. It better stop before I ride home.

At the break table one of the customer service reps couldn’t believe I would ride in. “Aren’t you cold?” she kept asking. I told her the tips of the fingers of my throttle hand were a bit nippy but other then that, nah. She said it couldn’t be worth it. I just smirked and said, yeah, it is worth it.

Then at the crowded break table but to no one in particular, I said there isn’t any other feeling like it. It’s almost like flying. . .and I trailed off staring into space, thinking about riding down the perfect ‘S’ curves.

Later the sun set, and then a coworker came up to my desk as I was putting on my riding gear getting ready to go:

“It’s raining out” he said to me.

“Do you mean the weatherman lied to me this morning when he said there was only a 20% chance of rain this morning?” I asked as my coworker just shrugged and walked off. I hoped he was just pulling my leg. Dark and cold I can deal with. Even at the same time. But dark, cold, wet and slippery? Not so much fun.

When I stepped outside, it wasn’t raining, but the ground was indeed wet. The bike was soaking wet, and I wiped some of the water off with my towel and got ready to go.  Down the street a bit, the mist started and it continued to get thicker. Going around a corner I upshifted and my rear tire swung out a little on me. I made a note not to upshift / downshift / accelerate / deaccelerate around corners. As I got on the highway for my 3 minute highway cruise the heavy mist started to pelt me with rain drops.

Bah I said again. Coming off the highway I slowed down considerably before taking the cloverleaf: I didn’t want to slide around that corner as there wasn’t much area to pull her upright and go straight if I needed to try and get out of a slide.

I made it around the cloverleaf and to the country back roads I take home. They were wet still, and I took it easy on the gas. The rain let up to a thick mist again, and I could see dry patches under the trees. Then the mist let up completely and the roads were dry. I looked up to the sky and I could see the moon surrounded by clouds, but still shining on.

Then the mist came back, and so did the wet roads. The mist got thicker and turned into rain. Or hail. Or perhaps even snow. I couldn’t tell: as it hurt when it hit my face, but melted on my clear goggles. And it didn’t collect on the ground at all. But it was cold, and it was slippery. I could feel my bike getting loose going around one set of ‘S’ curves – I’d straight her up as much as I could and go straight until I had to start turning again.

The bike gave me enough control to get through it and the other corners on the final leg of my journey home. As I pulled up to the entrance, I flashed my lights at two four wheelers who wanted to turn left in front of me into the complex. They both turned and then I took my time taking the sharp 90 degree corner (all I might add, without putting my feet down on the ground) . I decided to take the long way around the complex so I wouldn’t have to take the 120 degree turn up to my building.

When I finally parked the bike, it was still hailing or sleeting or raining. . .whatever it was, it was cold and wet. The roads were slick. It was dark. I made it home in one piece with no incidents. And all the while my heart was racing hoping for the best. Not the type of thrill ride I like (I prefer the  kind on an 80 deg F sunny day on those aforementioned perfect “S” curves. . .), but still an enjoyable ride.

Plus it was worth seeing the looks on the faces of the people as I pulled into the gas station, filled her up with $6 worth of gas and headed out again. Teehee.

So I just published my first book.

Well, not really. It wasn’t really self published. I used one of those online POD places. The book is more of my recollections of my time in Haiti. Sure it was over 10 years ago, but most of what I wrote about it I wrote back in 1997. I mostly did this so I’ll have a hard copy of my recollections rather then just a print out in a three ring binder. With the book I was able to put my pictures in it as well. I’m going to get a copy to see how it looks, and if it looks good, I’ll give one each to my family – just for shits and giggles. At 78 pages in a 7″ X 7″ format with 1.5 line spacing, it isn’t that big. But it is mine:

I drove down to RI and then hopped in the “hippie van” with the Tundii, Jeff and Pat, to go out to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA for the opening day of the LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel. When we got there about 7:30 pm, the Matt, Paula and Nate, aka The Goddamn Batman, met up with us at the hotel that we were splittng two rooms at and we went out for eats at at Mexican restaurant. We had missed the pre-opening walk through that the Yahoos had been invited to, but perhaps one of the guys that was there will give us a recap. . .

After some tasty Mexican food, we just crashed back at the hotel. With no plans for the morning other then going to breakfast after waking up.

So while we were waiting for our breakfast at the restaurant formerly known as Alice’s Restuarant, Nate goes: “Dave just walked by.” No one wanted to jump up and go talk to him, as he was prolly walking back to his hotel which was just right down the street. Less then 5 minutes later, guess who walked in? Yep, Dave Sim. Handshakes all around and then he sat down between Nate and myself and ordered a decaf coffee. The main topic of dicussion was the black suit Dave was wearing. As he had thought the Red Lion Inn where he was staying had a dress code of a jacket. So he was going to wear a blazer along with a pair of jeans. But nope, no jeans allowed. So a black suit and a comfy pair of sneakers. Nope, no sneakers allowed. So Dave as dressed in his black suit with shiny pointy shoes that reminded me of Cerebus’ black shiny pointy shoes in Guys:

Food was brought out and finished, and off we went. Dave was going back to his room for prayer time, but Jeff would pick him up and bring him to the show in a bit. The show was a couple minutes from the restuarant and Dave’s hotel, and was back off this small little country road. It sat on top of a small hill and overlooked a small valley below. The some of the leaves on the trees were tenaciously holding on, giving us a glimpse of the fall foliage for which the Berkshires are famous. Yes, the Norman Rockwell Museum is in the Berkshire area of Massachusetts, almost on the border with New York.

We paid our $12.50 to get in, except Paula who had a student discount, and we started looking at the Norman Rockwell paintings. Which were beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but I came to see comic book art. Wondering where it was located I started walking back towards the back of the museum. The museum is laid out in a big 3 by 3 grid: three rooms wide and three rooms deep. I went through the first room in the center, and when I got to the second room I could see the sign in the third room for the LitGraphic show. I entered and to my right was five pieces from the Pride of Baghdad by Niko Henrichon. They were amazing. The book itself is gorgeous, but as usual, when confronted by the original size comic art of 11″ X 17″ I was just floored.

Right beside Niko’s pieces were five pieces from Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore. Fantastic. Overall, there are pieces by 24 different comics artists on exhibit. Which will be ongoing through May 26, 2008. One of the pieces that moved me the most was by Sue Coe from her Sheep of Fools graphic novel. There was one page, larger then standard comic art, it measured approximately 2 by 3 feet if I had to estimate, and was black and white. The page showed a huge cargo ship in a fierce ocean storm with a fire on board the ship. The men were in lifeboats moving away from the ship while on the ship we could see cages filled with trapped sheep. Sheep were on the bow of the ship and in the water as well. I won’t get any more descriptive then that, as seeing the original page made my belly turn. Quite amazing when an artist can do that.

One of the other amazing artists with work on display that I was exposed to for the first time was Barron Storey. They had some of his original journals there plus some other work. Being a fan of Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave McKean, and Kent Williams, it was amazing to see the work of the artist that influenced them.

Then I left the first room and turned into the room to the right. Only to see the cover to Church & State I staring back at me. In all, Dave and Gerhard had 9 pieces there:

• Church & State 1 cover: a 22″ x 34″ piece. Amazing to see close up. I had never seen the woman grabbing her breasts with the guy staring at her (it is on the back of the cover) until I spent some time staring at wonder at this piece.
• Form & Void page 492, and the double page spread of page 489 & 490.
• Jaka’s Story cover: another 22″x 34″ piece. You could see the blue lines for the placement of the spine of the book and the front and back covers. Looking even closer you could see a redish-tanish stain that dripped down the front of the cover, right between young Jaka and Nurse. John L later told me that Dave had stated that when he went down to get the artwork, he found that some mouse droppings had landed on this cover.
• Jaka’s Story page 79: Young Jaka after she fell. Looking at the original art you can see the text is just a paste up of typed text, but the S looks hand drawn. And the well known border tape makes an appearance.
• Jaka’s Story pages 108 & 109: Where Rick realized just who “Fred” really is.
• The Last Day page 230: Cerebus going into the light.
• Jaka’s Story pages 462 & 463, when Rick finds out from Mrs Thatcher what Jaka has done.
• Jaka’s Story pages

One of the other amazing pieces to see were 49 wooden blocks from Lynd Ward’s graphic novel “Gods’ Man” from 1929. They took up one entire wall. And so did a Will Eisner story, seven pages of the story “Baxter’s Perfect Crime”. I hope I didn’t audible gasp when I saw the metal staples holding the titles for the pages of the Eisner story to the art board. I guess when your choice is staples, tape or glue, staples will pass the test of time the best – and these ones were still holding up after 50 years. I had to laugh when I saw how they matted one of the Robert Crumb pages from Zap #12: the top right hand word balloon was covered up with the matte. Intentionally.

Around 3pm Dave had to take off to get back to the hotel for prayer time, so he hopped in the car with Lenny, and the rest of the Yahoos got into the hippievan. Lenny had to pick Dave up about 3:40 or so, but the rest of us were going to have some eats. Jeff T had talked to John L and his posse, who had just pulled into the parking lot was we were getting ready to leave. They would stay and look at the exhibit as they had already eaten.

As we were eating, Lenny realized that, oh shit, it was actually 4pm and he was late to pick up Dave. So he took off with his hot tea (to go!) and we continued to eat our lunch/dinner. By the time we got back to the museum, Dave, Lenny and John L & crew were no where to be seen. I went outside to look for John’s car, but it wasn’t out front anywhere. Jeff T checked the back and didn’t see them parked out there either. Umm. Not finding them we wondered where Lenny and Dave had gone off to. Jeff went off looking for him and never showed back up. Nate came back from his record (the musical kind) searching and stated that they were prolly downstairs in the archives which is what Dave had wanted to see. So he started heading downstairs.

Now the museum was technically closed to the public and the staff was getting it ready for the opening to start at 6:30 pm, it was only about 5:15 pm now. But Nate just walked through the foyer downstairs and no one bothered him so the rest of us trailed behind him. And yup, Dave, Lenny and Jeff T were downstairs with a museum employee and someone that looked like Terry Moore (and yes, later I found out it was Terry). The employee showed us around the Norman Rockwell Museum’s archives, where they host all of his fan mail, articles, magazines with his covers, etc. He stated the pictures had all been digitalized and put into a database, and the originals were in a freezer for storage. Later when I was talking to the museum curator she stated that they wanted to get the database online so others could view them also.

After viewing the archives, the Yahoos hung out with Dave in the room downstairs. Martin, one of the curators of the exhibit, came down and told us that the food was all out and things were going to be starting. I was walking around and saw someone that looked really familar standing by Tundis. Umm. I gave him the “don”t I know you look.” I walked up and said Dan? Indeed it was: Dan Parker had shown up. The last time we had met was at a SPACE some couple of years ago.

Some yummy snacks and some opening statements by the museum curator and Peter Kuper, the show was officially opened. It was a little strange wandering around looking at the comic art and the Norman Rockwell originals with comic creators and museum members. I made a point to track down Terry Moore and say thanks for Strangers in Paradise, and how much I enjoyed it. Robyn Moore showed up and Terry introduced us. He was disappointed that we couldn’t take pictures in the gallery sections of the museum for fear of copyright infringement. As we were standing right by the SiP pieces I said he should just stand in front of his own artwork, and then it wouldn’t be a problem.

Then I kept looking for Howard Cruise, but he was tied up with other comic creators and I didn’t want to interrupt him. Until Nate came by and asked me if I knew what Howard looked like. So I gave him a short description and we went on the hunt for Mr Cruise. We found him talking to Marc Hempel. Just then Matt came by and said they were getting all the Yahoos together to take a picture in front of the Church and State cover. Nate and I look at each other and decided to get the two creators signatures before heading over to the picture taking. I got to thank Mr Cruise for Stuck Rubber Baby and tell him how much I enjoyed it. He looked at Marc and jokingly said he didn’t know how to feel about being thanked for work that was 20 years old. Nate got his poster signed by both as his silver pen used the last of its ink.

We went over to the Cerebus art and stared some more at the Church & State cover. Someone was pointing at something on it (I think the funny looking smiley faces on it) when a booming voice behind us said “Don’t touch the artwork.” We turned around to see Dave laughing at us:

I managed to snap a picture of everyone looking at it before the museum photographer came into the room. I had asked him if he could snap a picture using my camera also, as a group picture would be excellent, and getting everyone together is always . . .fun. Pictures were taken, and someone came back to tell us that the museum was closing. So we all headed out to the foyer. The staff was taking down what they had just put up a few hours ago. People were still mingling around, and I sat down on a bench with Paula, as I was getting a bit tired of standing.

A few minutes later Dave comes up and says this is where I had been hiding, he had wanted to say goodbye before he took off to dinner with some other comic creators. I got to shake his hand and got a hug instead. I was a bit surprised: a hug I questioningly said. Dave said yeah, he was never too sure nowadays and just joking around proceeded to give me a very strong handshake:

(picture by Lenny)

He asked if I was still riding the motorcycle, and I said the season was pretty much over as it was getting too cold in the morning to be riding in as my cut off was 32 degrees F: I didn’t want to slide on any ice on the road. I continued to say that with the riding season over I’ll be able to start back up on the archives again. Dave just smiled and said that was where he was leading with that question. Dave was pulled away by Martin who was trying to wrangle him to dinner. So we said our goodbyes and then after a few minutes we all left as well. Dan, Nate and John L & crew had already left so the Tundii, Dows, Lenny and myself headed back to the hotel. We sat around and talked for a bit before Lenny took off for the trip back to the city.

The rest of us stayed the night and went back to the restaurant formerly known as Alice’s Restaurant for breakfast the following day. Then we too said our goodbyes. At least until SPACE on March 1st next year.

So I just got back from the LitGraphic show at the Norman Rockwell Museum. I’ll blog about it tomorrow after I collect my thoughts so to speak. I have posted some pictures:

Picture taken by the Museum photographer. Taken in front of the cover to Church & State I (and other various Cerebus art)

back row, left to right: Boe L, John L, Lenny, Dave Sim, Matt D, Nate O, Dan Parker, John’s daughter.
front row, left to right: Pat T, Jeff T, Paula D, Margaret, and John’s future son-in-law.

Lenny also posted pictures here.

Tomorrow the LitGraphic show opens at the Norman Rockwell Museum. Dave Sim is showing up with 21 pages of original Cerebus art. Plus a couple other comic creators are going to be there. It should be fun. For more info click on the picture below: