As for Steve Kurtz, the reason I never talked about it here is because I did not know what happend. I only knew his wife died. I guess I live in my little bubble without televsion, visits to the pink, or school. I don't talk to anyone and get all of my news here on the site. So go ahead and keep me posted.

My two cents - On on hand I don't know much about the situation. On the other hand I went to go see Paul Vanouose and Steve Kurtz's talk on collaborative art with scientists and I have to say I was a little freaked out that he would want to work with anthrax simulants. Mostly, because it would make them seem so suspect in America right now. While he is for sure not a bioterrorist, we only know that because we know him. The police don't know him, the FBI didn't either. I am kind of glad the police check it out with hazmatt teams when they find something that they think might be biohazardous, even if it seems a little over the top. I mean better safe than sorry. They obviously had to call someone in, because we can pretty much bet 100% that the Buffalo police themselves are not trained to know the difference between a testtube and a anthrax lab. I mean what would expect them to do? Being an artist doesn't make you immune from the reality of the current state of affairs. I wonder what has happend to the guy that got him whatever the stuff that got him in trouble was. He must be in deep sh*t. I remember him saying that it is often hard to work with scientists sometimes because their jobs are on the line and then he used that specific one as an example.

I really wish him the best. It must be so hard on him, I can't imagine losing a wife and then this on top of it. Is he still banned from viewing the body, because that is sick and twisted? Moreover,iIs he even still around, or has he been permanently dissapeared? Which is scarier, real bioterrorists or the government agents? I guess I am glad I dropped science before I started art.

I spent the day weeding and edging at Deleware Park with my mother. No, it's not some sort of drug taking and come down process. It's a volunteer job my mother took on, taking care of one of the large L shaped rose beds at Deleware Park. She originally volunteered with my Dad and my Aunt. She is the last one left. My father is protesting my mother having volunteer jobs and my aunt is really busy with other stuff.

I guess it's kind of fun to do physical work occasionally, although, my brother mike is much better suited for the purpose. Today, he took pictures of us working. I said, "look mom, Michael is so strong he should work here instead." His reponse was, "I didn't volunteer for this crap, if it was up to me I would pave the whole park and put up a monument." So that was the end of that.

I ended up getting some clams at tops on the way back. $1.44/doz which beats the $7 doz at Merlins. My mother made me get a tops card because something was on sale. I hate those cards. I like the saving but I hate that they are tracking all of my shopping habits, etc. Like why do they need my email, phone, and apt number if they are not tracking me and/or selling my information. According to the pamphlet they are not selling any info but I seriously don't believe it. What happend when they get bought out for example. Does that rule still apply to the new owners. It's digital and easy to copy too, so what if some insider steals it, I bet all the info fits on one CD.

We also got to use the self check out machine. I hope that is not representative of future of shopping. It was such a pain to use, I prefer the full service cashier and I love human-machine interaction. It just seemed so lame as it freaked out because I leaned on the bag holder. It thought I was trying to steal because the weight in the bag was not equal to my purchase. It said "take whatever you put in the bag out and scan it so you can pay for it."

Then you insert the money in like a pop machine and out pops the receipt and some change. Keep chasiers in business, stop supporting the check out machine.

I took the night off of programming in order to work on some unfinished art projects. I finally bought the material needed for the elmwood banner. Unfortunately, I am not all so sure about how to cut out the letters or sew them. I have a sewing machine but I have no interest in it any more.

I went with rip-chord nylon flag material. I decided on a whiet 12 ft x 3 ft banner with black courier font lowercase "elmwoodstrip.com" It will look like a newspaper headline. I'm probably going to simply hang it off the house.

I also worked on some modeling projects I had put off.

Here are some new renders of cyborg kisses. I am thinking about making larger posters of these masks.







>>update - I never intended this to look like spiderman. In fact I really did not know what spiderman looked like. I just thought he was red. Matthew says it looks like him and now I feel dumb, if everyone thinks that is what I was going for.

I think this would make a great advertisement for the site. The map in the background is of deleware park and elmwood area. I want a remote control like this that would zap televsions dead on contact. Kind of like an overpowered remote or a TV taser.



I really believe most of the problems that we experience as a society could be dealt with if we would just throw away all of the televsions.

I would like to see a pie chart that reflects our annual beer cost/per visitor at our bar.

You all know how much I love it here on Elmwood but I am quite jealous of Julie [inlink]churchofjulie,31[/inlink]. I would like to be traveling in Alaska. I remember my travel days in Europe. It was so fun to see another side of the world without any sort of fitting it in to any one else's schedule. Argh, I wonder if you will ever come back.

Every week I mow the lawn at my nonna's house
with this old machine. Two years ago, I had it sharpend but it didn't
make it any easier. Last week, I added sewing machine oil. What a
difference, now it mows again.

How is it that I am the most high tech man I know and I am cutting with
this old machine. Nonna calls it old style. Sometimes, I like it
because its the only physical labor I do. It makes me feel strong is
some way.

I mean, I could high tech it and bring over some fancy, electrical,
cutters, but I won't, I need something to ground me

Today went well, I think everyone seemed interested in the cemetary idea and excited about 3D modeling.

Here is my test render from class.

::Download Flash SWF::

Well, I am off to Nonna for some Lawn mowing, if the weather permits it. Hodown, I know you are here in town, contact me when you get a chance.

Starting this morning at 11, I will begin teaching a new class I created called DMA 386 - Modeling Physical Environments for Real-time. I am going to be teaching the students to identify important data when exploring an environment with the intention of recreating it digitally.



The physical location I have chosen is Forest Lawn Cemtetary which has a really lame website by the way. We will eb traveling there and measuring, taking phtos, grave rubbings, scans, sketches, etc. Then we will collect all the data and rebuild a specific site in 3D. It seems like it will be an exciting class to teach.

We got to see Brian again. Here he is
posed with Terry.