3-5-04

Gee, muddy March already, seems like it was just new years not long ago.

We have had a bunch of rain around here the last few days. One guy said over 4” . sounds good to me. The wash below camp is still runnig. This will make the desert smile.

I have been going down to windspirit and downloading info on photography and selling on ebay. I then go back to camp and study the pages I have downloaded. I had a really good talk with Don yesterday and the fog is starting to clear in my fuzzy brain.

One of the things I came across is a website that you can store photos on that make it handy to link your ebay pages to for photos. Ebay charges $ for more photos than one but you can link to a site like this one and have multiple photos at no charge. The website can also be used for any other personal use. (www.photobucket.com) It is a free one too so that is always something that makes me smile. I was going to use one of those free websites that I had made for some of our sheep products but I see that they are charging for the website now and evidently Susan hasn’t paid up.

For those of you that are having problems with dealing with photos there is also a nice FREE photo program that makes it easy to crop and resize photos. It is easy to use.

http://www.deadzoom.com/member/nktower/tutorials/IrfanView_Tutorial.htm

you will have to download the irfanview program. It didn’t take long.

I happened to catch a small juice can sneaking into camp this afternoon. Fortunately I was armed and gave chase when it tried to get away. Several clips with a 22 S&W pistol and a couple of tubes in the Marlin slowed it down to a slow crawl. It was GREAT to get loud and create a disturbance. I haven’t done that for too long. I’ll try to attach a photo of the remains. I put on my new ear protection that I got in Phoenix. They have electronic sound system that blocks out harmful levels. They were just great. I had the radio on in the pickup and  it was nice to be able to listen while I blasted the little can. It’s great to be a guy! What do women do for fun?

Since I haven’t been doing much lately my friend in South America is picking up the slack of interesting things to report out there on the road. I will attach his letter at the end of this.  It sounds like he is having some very interesting encounters. It makes me want to get back out there on the road and ‘get with it’ again. I am getting quite a bit done hanging here though and learning some. The community is very interesting and both Don and Kim are filling me in on some of  the problems that they have been working through. It was a fairly loose and it sounds like it was out of control ten years ago. They have been working on rebuilding the bonds with the community as well as weeding out the non workers and riff-raff in  general. There are a lot of people that move in and out and a lot of people who visit from all over the world. There are some interesting  people that come through. Some summers they have lots of help and get a bunch of stuff done with visitors and interns. Young kids have so much energy and if it is focused, it can be put to good use. There are always some who want to smoke dope and hide out to get out of doing work, those get weeded out and down the road they go.

Ooohh, the weather man just predicted maybe low 80’s by Sunday. Maybe I will get some use out of my shade tree. I think I will go to Apache Junction on Monday with Kim and whoever to the little craft fair. On Tuesday the massage therapist should be here. I am really looking forward to that.

Cheers, Rx

Don’t forget to read the southern road log post way below….

On the jewelry list someone posted this. I really liked reading through the list and you might too. enjoy………..

    Brain candy!.... This was originally done for the graphic arts

    community. I think we can apply it to ourselves as well. Hope you

    all enjoy it. Jerry NYC 

    An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth by Bruce Mau 

    1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow.

    Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce

    it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to

    experience events and the willingness to be changed by them. 

    2. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all

    agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration

    of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long

    as you stick to good you'll never have real growth. 

    3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives

    the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If

    process drives outcome we may not know where we're going, but we

    will know we want to be there. 

    4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the

    engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as

    beautiful experiment s, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors.

    Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day. 

    5. Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover

    something of value. 

    6. Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search

    of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the

    process. Ask different questions. 

    7. Study. A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of

    production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit. 

    8. Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies.

    Lack judgment. Postpone criticism. 

    9. Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to

    begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere. 

    10. Everyone is a leader. Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it

    to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead. 

    11. Harvest ideas. Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid,

    generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other

    hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to

    applications. 

    12. Keep moving. The market and its operations have a tendency to

    reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part

    of your practice. 

    13. Slow down. Desynchronize from standard time frames and

    surprising opportunities may present themselves. 

    14. Don't be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free

    yourself from limits of this sort. 

    15. Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence.

    Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout

    your life at the rate of an infant. 

    16. Collaborate. The space between people working together is filled

    with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast

    creative potential. 

    17. ----------. Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas

    you haven't had yet, and for the ideas of others. 

    18. Stay up late. Strange things happen when you've gone too far,

    been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the

    rest of the world. 

    19. Work the metaphor. Every object has the capacity to stand for

    something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for. 

    20. Be careful to take risks. Time is genetic. Today is the child of

    yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today

    will create your future. 

    21. Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don't like

    it, do it again. 

    22. Make your own tools. Hybridize your tools in order to build

    unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield

    entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our

    capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference. 

    23. Stand on someone's shoulders. You can travel farther carried on

    the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so

    much better. 

    24. Avoid software. The problem with software is that everyone has

    it. 

    25. Don't clean your desk. You might find something in the morning

    that you can't see tonight. 

    26. Don't enter awards competitions. Just don't. It's not good for

    you. 

    27. Read only left-hand pages. Marshall McLuhan did this. By

    decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he

    called our "noodle." 

    28. Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a

    new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression.

    The expression generates new conditions. 

    29. Think with your mind. Forget technology. Creativity is not

    device-depen dent. 

    30. Organization 3D Liberty. Real innovation in design, or any other

    field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of

    cooperative ly managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only

    able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget.

    The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what

Leonard

    Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.' 

    31. Don't borrow money. Once again, Frank Gehry's advice. By

    maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It's

    not exactly rocket science, but it's surprising how hard it is to

    maintain this discipline, and how many have failed. 

    32. Listen carefully. Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings

    with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could

    ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety

    of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our

    own. Neither party will ever be the same. 

    33. Take field trips. The bandwidth of the world is greater than

    that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive,

    interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time,

    computer graphic-simulate d environment. ( YUP, get out there on the road! Rx)

    34. Make mistakes faster. This isn't my idea - I borrowed it. I

    think it belongs to Andy Grove. 

    35. Imitate. Don't be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can.

    You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly

    remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version

    of Marcel Duchamp's large glass to see how rich, discredited, and

    underused imitation is as a technique. 

    36. Scat. When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up

    something else 85 but not words. 

    37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it. 

    38. Explore the other edge. Great liberty exists when we avoid

    trying to run with the technological pack. We can't find the leading

    edge because it's trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment

    made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential. 

    39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms. Real growth often happens

    outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces - what

    Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once

    organized a science and art conference with all of the

    infrastructure of a conference - the parties, chats, lunches,

    airport arrivals - but with no actual conference. Apparently it was

    hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations. 

    40. Avoid fields. Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and

    regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative

    life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are

    manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the

    fences and cross the fields. (I really like this one. Rx) 

    41. Laugh. People visiting the studio often comment on how much we

    laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of

    how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.aue things. Even simple

    tools that are 

    42. Remember. Growth is only possible as a product of history.

    Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a

    direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded

    or composite image of a previous moment or event. That's what makes

    us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that

    every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source,

    and, as such, a potential for growth itself. 

    43. Power to the people. Play can only happen when people feel they

    have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we're not

    free.

~~~~~~~~~~~

(This just makes so much sense to me now. It is such a relief to not have to deal with the farm, sheep, Susan.

 It is like I can take a deep breath now and explore with a smile.  Rx)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

REPORT FROM DOWN BELOW

Was  pushing my bike up a steep as a mthafucka hill in a neighborhood when a 

voice called out in what I thought was English.  When I stoped and said Que? 

  She said where are you going I said I don´t know.  Well why don´t you stay 

Here a great Castle looking stone house german looking huge rock wall.  I 

thought well I was going to go 30k mas but why not stay:  It is a vacation 

it is a block from the building.  turns out her husband passed away last 

june and she is doing some work on the house I am in the process of 

designing a staircase.  Hell of a deal.   Her name is Mary Lou.  She has a 

doberman as most of you know I forgot to buy a dog.  At any rate north of 

Vina del Mar   She is chielena and was married to a spanard.  Her children 

live in the US.

She has another huge house of stone on a corner and is selling it for 

$250,000  In Red lodge $800.000 California $4.000.000.  So she and I have 

been talking about buying and selling houses:

Entonces I am back in the market for a house the next toun I go to is 

Maintencillo.  Another coast town,  w 2 golf courses but a very quiet 

village after Feb 1.  I saw one there earlier for 35,000 US.  w a second 

floor it would have a great vieu of the ocean.  At any rate am going to 

check out houses.

Yesterday started off  w me and the bike in a truck for 5 miles because the 

traffic was nuts but the remaining 15k was perfect beach riding paved road 

no trafic suffers and  clam hunters,  cool breeze and slightly cloudy.

So if I find something of interest I will send out an apb.  As Mary Lou said 

in Chilie if you sell a house for profit there is no tax because you have 

already been taxed on the money you bought it with.  She is 75 I would 

guess, Has real Estae Lawyers and the whole deal so I am glad I stoped.

More later Chao