Archive for October, 2006

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Our progress as artists

Wednesday, October 25th, 2006

A unique conjunction of the planets or something gives me the opportunity to show you the progress Aaron and I have made as artists in the past 11 years. After the comments on the previous post, Aaron was inspired to create an “artistic rendering of the plight of you midwesterners.” You’ll see that later in the post.

I, on the other hand, was inspired to ask my parents for photos of the mural that decorates the outer walls of the studio we built in our barn. Thanks to the fact that we signed and dated our masterpiece, I can tell you that we painted this mural when we were about 14 years old. Lest you think that we were “good kids who painted murals in their spare time,” I confess that we also concocted explosives and torched aeresol cans. Andd now, if any of you were wondering what my mom was referring to when she commented about carrots with machine guns and rabid rabbits, here are close-ups of two sections of the mural. The media were (I think) oil on fiberboard and oil on particle board, respectively:

Part of the rabid rabbits mural .... Another section of the rabid rabbits mural

Aaron was responsible for the carrots and anything that looks remotely good. I was responsible for the rabbits and the ”(un)happy trees”. Notice especially the tongue-in-cheek references to the ubiquitous consumerism of our society when we made the clouds say “Eat at Joe’s” and the 1970’s John Doe sun advertise a bottle of Coke.

So that you can see how far we have come since then, here is Aaron’s artistic representation of a stingray of doom (the “plight of the midwest” that I mentioned above):

Aaron's stingray of doom

As you can see, this giant land ray is busy wreaking havoc on what appears to be a tanker truck in what appears to be a grassy field. I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but I’m sure that’s because the level of the work outpaced my knowledge. I don’t know why our art has the tendency to center around enormous animals/vegetables destroying things. There’s probably some psychological explanation.

As for the example of my most recent artistic pursuit, you’ll have to wait until the next post. Actually, I’m not sure you could call what I’m currently doing art, but then, if rabid rabbits and gargantuan stingrays crushing things are the standards by which we’re judging art… maybe I’m an artist after all. ;)

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Hospitals and sunsets

Friday, October 20th, 2006

Aaron requested some further explanation about the hospital I almost got treated at (see the previous post), so here it is. Also, I promised to post some more pics from vacation. I really wish I had a photo of this hospital, but that wasn’t really the first thing on my mind when I was headed there, if you know what I mean. Here’s a satellite photo, once again courtesy of Google Earth:

The hospital I visited in Florida


It was one story high, built with concrete block, and painted blue. Parking was pretty slim. But that was okay, since there was barely anyone there. According to the front desk lady, though, they were “busy”. Which is probably why there was only one other guy in the waiting room when I left. They were busy enough, though, that it would take “over an hour” for them to see me. At least the entrance was easy to find, thanks to an arrow and the words “emergency room” scrawled freehand in red paint on the side of the building. Anyway, something in my (sting-ray poisoned) mind objected to paying an emergency room copay for someone to take 90 minutes to give me a tetanus booster shot and send me on my way. Now, let me clearly state that I am not complaining. If I was seriously hurt, I would have been deeply thankful for this crazy little hospital. As it was, I experienced a mixture of frustration and humor, and I decided the better part of wisdom was to suck it up, go eat dinner, and wait to see if I really needed medical attention that badly, or if I would survive.


For comparison, here is the hospital 5 minutes from our house (notice the size of the cars for perspective):

Rush-Copley Medical Center


For another comparison, take the number of full-time nurses (according to one web site): Rush Copley: 187. Unnamed rural Florida hospital: 9. Seriously, would you go there unless you had to?


Well, enough on that. Like I said, the rest of the vacation was fantastic. By the way, while rural Florida hospitals sometimes leave something to be desired, rural Florida sunsets rock:

The sun sets over the ocean...


But Illinois isn’t that far behind. We see some pretty crazy/strange/beautiful sunsets from our deck. Like this one:

An Illinois sunset seen from our deck


The only thing that’s missing is the ocean… :)

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Florida

Monday, October 9th, 2006

Silhouette


Kayaking in the bay


We’re back from vacation.


Some great things about Florida:



  • Real seafood—catching crabs with a net and cooking them, and finding some quality local restaurants

  • Sea kayaking—from our best estimates based on Google Earth, we paddled over 5 miles that day!

  • Walking on the beach and looking for shells (and colorful broken pieces that might make a good mosaic)


Some not-so-great things:



  • Sunburned shins—apparently this is possible when you’re kayaking and careless about applying shin sunscreen

  • Sting rays hiding in the sand—they’re painful

  • Scary backwoods Florida hospitals, and walk-in clinics that claim to do wound care but won’t give tetanus shots—neither of which I will spend money on


So about those last two points… I’m not dead yet, and it really was a great vacation. I’ll post a few more pics soon.