not much to blog about blog.

this is my one hundred and oneth (first?) blog.

i've reached a pre-holiday slow period. thanksgiving is around the corner, and then I'm sure december will fly by. one beauty of working at a school is the time off. i've got five days in a row next week, then two full weeks for xmas. ooh yeah. i look forward to heading up to ely to hang out with lots of family, including two new baby cousins, plus lots of dogs. and of course my awesome little nephew. ely is beautiful too, although i'm guessing it will be very cold !

otherwise, work is going really well. it has been quite cold in chicago, which i don't like because it prevents me from biking. i think joe will be bringing the bikes up to minne over thanksgiving so i'll have to kiss that mode of transport goodbye for the season. which is depressing. but we really have no where to store them here, and i don't want it to get all rusty from snow.

here's a run down of other happenings, however banal.

watching: synecdoche, ny. this is an amazing film!!! i highly recommend it. it was both surreal but incredibly real. there was only one scene that disappoints. philip seymour hoffman is one of my favorites. it's written & directed by the guy who wrote eternal sunshine, another one of my favorite films.



listening: prince, sign o the times, on vinyl. i wish i had it on my ipod. this album is so solid. it's my favorite prince album by far. altho prince said some weird crap lately against gay marriage, which i was very disappointed to hear. last night i saw a prince cover band on letterman which only reaffirmed that there is only one prince. prince gives me some minnesota pride. so does wild rice.



cooking: i have been going a little susie housewife on this one, and it is way fun. i have been cooking and baking up a storm. two of my recent creations have been brought to joe's studio and his night class, which have made them happy :) i've been recently making tacos, wild rice soup, barbeque tofu, baked ziti, ginger snaps, pumpkin bread, oatmeal cookies, and white chocolate orange cookies. i love my oven. and it helps to heat up the house to boot. also, i have been eating carrots every day. i never even liked them until recently. now i can't get enough. it's weird how taste buds evolve.



crafting: i made a linocut this weekend and printed up a bunch of cards. i hope to make some more linocuts soon, perhaps some xmas cards or something crafty for xmas gifts. i love the idea of multiples. i was a big andy warhol freak in high school. therefore i am printing. i would love to get an antique letterpress. in fact i have been looking into it on ebay, i wouldn't mind spending a few bucks on one, however i don't have extra room. something else i would like is a gocco. it is a small japanese screen printing machine. unfortunately, they don't make them anymore. so they are kindof rare.



shopping: joe and i have been playing around with getting a new lens for the digital camera. i think we will be springing for a prime lens soon. joe hasn't had any time off to actually go with me to a camera shop to check them out however, so we are waiting for a time that he will be around...it doesn't look like that'll happen until after thanksgiving.



reading: underworld by don delillo. i picked this off of the shelf. joe is a fan. i tried to read white noise but didn't get into it. why i picked this much longer book by the same author is a bit of a mystery but i really like it so far. perhaps i should give white noise another chance.



that's about it for now. i didn't say this would be interesting!

obama election night footage

joe and i shot this video on tuesday night in grant park. it fails to convey the excitement or the sheer joy shared by all. it further fails to put faces to the masses, but it was dark and crowded, so what can i say? the flip camera isn't exactly conducive to night shots. but my hope is that someone may view it and kinda feel like they were there with us. joe shot most of it, which is why i'm onscreen a lot. i edited it last night, and joe picked out the song ("si, se puede" by antibalas afrobeat orchestra). enjoy & let me know what you think.



i wish i could've gotten more footage when the actual announcement was made, but we were a little caught up in the moment :)

yes we can

the excitement builds.....

vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote!

tomorrow's gonna be a good day.

and now, for some cheesy sappy stuff.

the rising.

change.

yes we can.

video #2: last weekend

here is the video from dwyer & tiffany's visit last weekend. you'll see: terra (joe's studio), lincoln park zoo & conservatory, toast (brunch), neighborhood cuban restaurant, lunch at black bird, us out and about, etc. what you won't see is the madonna concert, dwyer's got the footage of that. not too much of joe or myself, as we were usually shooting the video. it was a great weekend! i hope this clip can do it some justice. enjoy.

hey, did you miss it?

...probably not. i'm talking about obama's prime time blitz last night. i had my reservations about this. but it is great. so i highly recommend you check it out if you haven't already:

i missed the boat, sort of.

so, i guess tickets for the election night obama rally are all gone. word is that the obama campaign emailed illinois supporters to invite them to sign up for free tickets. like yesterday. now they're gone. well, i have donated to the campaign, am registered on his site as being here in chicago, but still didn't receive an email. now i'm waitlisted for actual tickets.

that sucks! owell. we'll still head down there and see what's going on.

what we're not talking (enough) about

we are all caught up in political smears lately. that, and watching the economy collapse. but let's take a minute to focus on science & technology. if we're going to get serious about america's global leadership role for the future, this is where to do it. Education, health, the environment, energy independence, and yes, national security are all hinged on support for scientific research. more emphasis & investment in new technology advancements here would reshape our economy to make us more competitive in the 21st century globalized economy.

joe has always said that everything boils down to one thing: energy. access to clean, unlimited, renewable energy would change everything. i know this isn't some novel concept, but i've just been so amazed that what we usually hear on this topic during the campaign is 'drill baby drill'. we have got to get away from oil. so long as politicians are in bed with the oil industry, the innovation won't come. the motivation isn't there. so this is where government needs to step in and push hard.

here's some things that may have been overshadowed by other distractions during the campaign (like, say, lipstick)

-an open letter from 62 nobel laureates in support of obama

-obama's answers to questions on science for the journal nature (mccain declined to answer)

-the science debate 2008, pitting obama & mccain's responses to 14 important, science-related questions side by side

and, lastly, obama giving a speech on energy in michigan:

well said.

get bachmann out!

spread the word to everyone living in minnesota's 6th congressional district...



...to vote tinklenberg and oust michele bachmann!!! she IS NOT representative of the kind of minnesotans I know. you may remember her from a video i posted a while ago, where she gets into a tangle with james carville...well, she's at it again, this time claiming obama (and many other liberals?) are anti-american.



Bachmann currently holds a 4-point lead over tinklenberg, 42-38, 15% undecided.

http://www.tinklenberg08.com/

video, that i made.

this is my first attempt at any sort of video. it was taken by the new flip joe gave me last week. i had a lot of fun messing around with it tonight in ivideo. not exactly perfect but i like it. mostly shot during the first day of my ny weekend.