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I can't think of a witty thing to say, but regardless.

"Seer" 6x6" gouache on gessobord

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"theft of a moment" 6x6 gouache on gessobord

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"pressure points" 6x6" gouache on gessobord

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"Frith, the Sun" 6x6" gouache & gold leaf on gessobord

A little watership down lore - Lord Frith was the sun.

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Another struggling bun.

"Undertown" 6x6" gouache on gessobord

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I'm not sure what to call this shark.

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"Title transfer" 11"x14", oil on canvas

Still needs varnishing etc.

#british artist #cornish artist #san francisco artist #deadpan studio #his dark materials #a subtle knife #philip pullman #the golden compass #art #painting #oil paint #hand #fingers #neon #neon pink #clouds #storm #sky #stars #constellations #book

[phae]

Week 553

It's the last day of our winter holiday and I was thinking to myself that I ought to have done a Year Notes, like all the cool kids, but I just couldn't be bothered. Much like weeknotes, I've lost the joy of making little updates recently, so I've decided not to push it.

Quick recap, though:

Omicron arrived, and I count myself forever lucky to have a good, local, group of friends who immediately decided to cut out all the indoor restaurant and bar trips and all the fun stuff, and return to only gathering inside if everyone tested first, within our little social bubble. Consequently, I was able to have Christmas Eve at our house with a couple folks, and Christmas dinner at someone else's and be at a very small NYE gathering.

Still haven't caught COVID!

Monica invited me to an event a few weeks back - a popup at a friend of hers' bar where a few local makers were selling their wares, one of whom ended up being me. First time selling art in person! What I learned is: Framed prints sell best, people will be really sweet and nice and I won't know how to react in any way except with a lot of self-deprecation, and selling originals is much more psychologically challenging than anticipated.

A couple of original paintings at the pop-up went to friends, so I know roughly where they are in the world, but I sold an original watercolour of a crow to a stranger and I actually feel a weird sense of loss about it. Like, it's gone and I'll never see it again? Completely unexpected emotional attachment to a thing I made explicitly for the purpose of selling.

Finished another semester of Japanese and am putting that down for a little while, but ikebana is still going well (grade 6 now!) and I've got enough paid contract work to keep me off the streets.

Not much else to note. I think I'm probably done with week notes for a while. I got back into them at the start of 2020 thinking it would be a way to pass the year of corona, but it feels like too much drudgery wrapping up a second year in this state. Maybe I'll switch to monthly notes for a bit. Anyway - I make it 553 weeks of my life living in this place they definitely misnamed the United States of America! Who knew it would be so long.

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[phae]

Week 521

Andrew Hyder died. A truly a wonderful man. I'm not sure what to say about it other than he was young and healthy and his body still betrayed him, and I feel very lucky that I was able to work with him when I did (at CfA) and get to know him and his wife. Life is short and unpredictable, so make the most of it while you can.

He's not the only death we've had - we've lost other people during the pandemic (all young, smart, men, for varying reasons). It's been really hard and sad for a lot of people.

Alex and I are doing some living for a while, so we're on the road for a bit. Will report back later!

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[phae]

Week 516

Considered fully vaccinated as of this Friday just passed. Which, honestly, is a bit anticclimactic since it doens't suddenly change a lot of things. But, it does bring a new peace of mind that I'm very unlikely to get sick and more importantly even less likely to get someone else sick.

Pre-vaccination, we'd be extremely conservative - we haven't been doing even outdoor dining or anything that would have us maskless around others nearby. Now we're vaccinated, we've relaxed enough that we went out to dinner! At a restaurant! With friends (from the bubble, but still)! Still outdoor dining, distanced tables and masks, but still. Very exciting and an excellent excuse to not wear a lycra-blended outfit for once.

Finishing up a couple more paintings for Deadpan Studio. I also cleaned up my pig painting and I'm waiting for the proof to come back for that one.

iRiver project seems to no longer need my services, which I take as a win for my ability to teach certain others some basic git/github skills. Teach a man to merge to upstream and he'll eat fish for a lifetime something, something.

Two other pieces of on-going work are more or less settling into the same focus area - namely product management coaching.

I'm reading a book called Switch by Chip and Dan Heath that someone recommended to me once in a pub (so definitely in the before times) which I impulse bought and has languished on my kindle since. Basically, it explains how to change minds and get people to change behaviour, mostly by starting small and hitting folks in the feels. It reads like an American explaining all the little tricks we played at GDS. Anyway, it's very pop sci, but sensible.

I'm half way through my 12 week Zwift training plan and they're actually starting to hurt a little bit. Progress will be made!

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[phae]

Week 514

The only thing worth mentioning this week is that today I was vaccinated for COVID-19!

Alex and I were able to get the one-dose Johnson & Johnson Janssen vaccine today at UC Davis Health in Sacramento, who opened up vaccination for anyone over 16 earlier this week, ahead of the State-wide 16+ eligibility opening on the 15th April.

We switched to stay-home mode 56 weeks ago, and honestly, I cannot truly believe I'm vaccinated so soon. Go science!

I am so relieved and happy!

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[phae]

Week 512

Huge amounts of anxiety around vaccinations. They're opening it up for anyone over 16 to get them from the 15th April here in California, and I'm so impatient and I just want this done and over now. Preparing to spend a lot of time refreshing appointment websites and swearing.

Alex said 2 weeks ago that he thought we'd either have had our first vaccine or have an appointment for it within the next 12 weeks, so I'm now mentally operating my life within that timeline.

Signed up for a beginner-friendly 12 week structured fitness programme on Zwift. Just finished week 2 and feeling good about it. I did the ramp test to see what my FTP is and it works out that my power-to-weight ratio is, like, 2, which appears to be the very definition of noob. That's fine. Can only go up, right?

Took a fondue class with Gwen on zoom with the SF cheese school. I had this impression that making fondue was difficult, but it absolutely isn't, so that'll be a large portion of my diet going forward.

Dana gave me a shashiko making set. It's very easy looking, being that it's just a running stitch, but the trickiness is in making thousands of little stitches that are equally sized, spaced and straight. Good for doing while watching TV, though. I've nearly finished a tea towel.

Within this new 12 week window of life, and with the said addition of shashiko projects, I'm planning to do a frog or finish on all of the craft projects loafing around the house. There's probably a good dozen - knitting, sewing, embroidery, model making, etc. - that need to either get completed or go away forever.

Work has been a bit busier, including one new project that's actually let me touch some code for the first time in a long time. Nice change of pace.

I ate 4.5 donuts this week.

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[phae]

Week 510

Stationary bike arrived. Declared putting it together yesterday's workout, so wish me luck on future endeavors. I had a practice go on it and it's much harder than I expected.

This week I finally put out my first prints on Deadpan Studio. I've been noodling on some paintings and stuff the last few months and via some very kind encouragement, mostly from Monica - a fellow shy, but actually quite good, artist -, I decided to just actually follow-through on making something all the way from idea to print. It's been fun doing it, to be honest, including figuring out how to actually sell something online and package it and all of that stuff. I'm incredibly self-consicious about "doing" art at all, but it feels sort of nice to have a specific outlet for that now, and I'm not expecting to turn a profit, just have a bit of fun. I'm currently working on some oil paintings I intend to share there.

Mum & Dad got their first vaccines this week, their second will be in May! Feel good about that. I can actually, maybe, possibly, imagine getting to go home late this summer.

That's it. I'm really bored of cooking.

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[phae]

Week 508

Not much to report for the last few weeks. We're just on the cusp of it being 1 year since we arrived home from Japan (1st March) and pretty much went directly into a lockdown. It's sort of funny to think of that trip a year on. We were definitely joking a little through the journey, but on the last few days I did start to get a little nervous that we might be stuck in Japan. Wonder when we'll be on the move again.

I've picked back up my weekly exercise goals. I rode my bike for the first time in a while a couple weekends ago and felt extremely weak, so I've decided to just go for it and buy a stationary bike. Not a peloton, obvs. Curious to see how it sticks. Because I can't do anything high-impact, I rely on a lot of walking and invested in a little mini-elliptical last year, and that's helped a lot. Even Alex has got pretty into getting sweaty while stepping and watching junk TV.

The new bike has bluetooth (what doesn't?) so maybe I'll Zwift?

Palm Pilot is just about done, wrapping up some last bits of logistics. Another project (Walkman) that went dormant over the holidays appears to be waking back up and seems like it'll turn into a longer-term product coaching thing. I'm not sure if I'm a good coach, but I am good at being constructively honest, and I think that objectivity (along with having already done similar things already) is what people are looking for, as a rule.

I haven't played anymore Destiny 2, but I have played a lot of Valheim.

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[phae]

Week 504

I had a birthday this week. A pandemic birthday! I realise that just about everyone, except February babies, has had a pandemic birthday by now. Alex supplied a dozen donuts and some lovely flowers, and we later took a walk around the park with friends and their new dog.

This week I mostly worked on some paintings, getting towards completing a little project I'm code naming PalmPilot.

Been playing a lot of RDO still, and only just discovered Destiny 2 is free-to-play now, so that fills some idle time. One of my Quest controllers cracked a couple weeks ago and had to go back for replacement, so I'm losing good e-sports time in Beatsaber. My neck feels better, though.

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[phae]

Week 501-502

Not much to update. We survived the inauguration.

In lieu of anything interesting to say, here's a special little treat for those week notes readers: a very painful, slow, video of me playing Sea of Theives' Becalmed on concertina. To watch it back is how I imagine it feels to watch a sheep in a nativity play forget their lines.

Partially recording it so the historians have interesting material for when I'm hailed as the greatest concertina player of all time.

Watch video on Youtube

If your feed-reader skipped the video (and fall-back link) above, like mine did, you'll have to actually and visit the website like a peasant (or click this link). Sorry.

If you're here, on an independent website, directly, in 2021: Hello, weirdo!

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[phae]

Week 500

It's 2021 and my 500th week living in the wonderful US of A, and this week we had an attempted coup! What more could I ask for to celebrate this wonderful round number.

The week was somewhat of a write-off. Who can do anything productive when there are lunatics threatening the consitutional electoral process with violence? Alex and I declared Wednesday a Snow Coup Day and stayed glued to the live feed, and then stayed up late to see the electoral vote count get finalised.

Other than that basic threat to democracy, I don't have much else to report.

Replied to a couple of work emails, but not a lot else on the capitalism side of things. I never really talk about my jobs, because it's always felt too personal. So much about "doing the work" is the relationships that get built with the people you're working with (or for) that it doesn't seem quite correct to talk about it publicly. I might try and talk more abstractly about the things I'm learning and seeing more in future though, because it is a big part of what I'm doing in any given week. I'm a bit of a fan of the way that Tom code-names projects, so maybe I'll borrow that idea.

I'm very slowly working on learning Twinkle Twinkle on the concertina. I mostly don't understand how my two hands will ever learn to push different buttons at different intervals, but I'm assured it's just practice and they'll get it eventually. I'm trying to keep in mind that I can touch type, and this is largely the same skillset. Just a new layout and cadence, right?

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