Viaduct? Vhy Not A Tunnel?

1910.Meanwhile, in New York Alka-Seltzer, the shouting is over, and the preferred replacement to the Alaskan Way Viaduct will be a deep-bore tunnel, saith the Seattle P-I.

Going down!

Technorati Tags: Seattle, Alaskan Way Viaduct, Urban Growth

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In The Year 2525 ...

1909.A little pictorial satire, set to the "tune" of the famous Zager & Evans song from 1969. Please note, this post has extra added exordium and terminus for your viewing pleasure.

Klicken Sie hier to view it bigly.

Technorati Tags: In the year 2525, exordium, terminus, satire, zager & evans, 1969 music

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Using ScribeFire: An Official Unofficial Review

1908.(I don't know where the 7 missing posts are, and am uninclined to look for them now) For the last month or so, in my endless quest for a more blogger-friendly way of making my posts happen, I have been using ScribeFire, which is a plugin for Firefox.

I must say, I'm most pleased with it so far, and am continuing.

Originally, like many Blogspot bloggers, I used the Blogger interface and it was acceptable. But one day, before I was redirecting my RSS feed to Feedburner, I happened upon Adobe Contribute CS3, which for a long time hit it out of the park ... not only does it allow you to compose and save entries offline for polishing when necessary (all my discourses happen perfectly alla prima, so that's not a worry with me so much) but has a grand WYSIWYG interface. What more could you want?

I had to reluctantly give up on Contribute though. Once you redirect your RSS feed, Contribute won't edit entries any more. And when you do un-redirect, it changes the post time to something strange and random.

After that it was Qumana, and I was satisfied with that for quite some time, though version 3.0.0 still doesn't work in OS X 10.4.11. I queried the developer and they spotted me a beta of the next incremental version, which was nifty, but it didn't implement Blogger categories, and since I'm lazy, a lot of entries went unfiled thereon. Further queries to the Qumana help have gone unanswered.

Knowing there were plugins available for Firefox, I finally gave in to the urge to find them and try them. ScribeFire seemed the most highly reccommended, and I tried it at first. At the beginning of the learning curve, I wasn't that impressed, but as I've used it and learned its ways and means, I've become very impressed indeed.

The one thing that has caused me to love SF is my own Holy grail: it allows me to manage Blogger categories and Technorati tags from it with an intutitive interface. Now no post I make should go untagged or unfiled, unless I'm having a really, really, really lazy day.

I can also now, finally, upload illustrations through the plug in. No longer do I have to upload to Photobucket and link (unless I want you to see it bigly). I love anything that saves me a step (new users will note that if you're not FTP-hosting your blog, you'll be using the "API" button on the upload dialog sheet, as it uses the Blogger API to embed the illo).

Text styling is easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, although you have to do this with a mouse click (if there's a way to force the keyboard to be recognized for this, I've not yet found it). It's all in a very word-processory interface, so you already at least know how to use that part (scaling up/down the text is found in an unexpected place, but that's a minor flaw, if one considers it a flaw). Any entry in process can be saved as a note. It also has advertising and monetizing features, if that's where your proclivities lie.

In all, I'd recommend any frequent blogger who uses Firefox to at least give it a try. After you get into the plug in you'll see how it can make your blogging a bit more efficient and powerful, which I think is what we all want.

Either look it up in the plug-in finder via Firefox's interface, or go to http://scribefire.com.

Either way, I think you'll be happy. I'll be using this for a while.

Technorati Tags: bloggage, blogging, blog editors, blog clients, free blog clients, firefox plugins, scribefire

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RATP: Paris' Romantic Transit Logo

1900.Can a logo be romantic? Can a transit company logo have romantic aspirations? If you are the RATP of greater Paris, France, I think it can.

Transit companies, which tend to bind communities on basic level, strive for a sort of meta-identification. Our own TriMet is a good example. The current logo, which appears to be three crescents nestling together in a graphic menae-a-trois, neatly references the name (which itself is a token representing a much larger name) and the concept of serving three connected polities.

Which crescent you think represents your metropolitan Portland county is an exercise left, of course, to the reader.

Now, if I can take us off on a tangent, Paris is an amazingly small piece of land for the amount of economic, strategic, and cultural influence it has. The area the French capital covers within its corporate boundaries is only about 34 square miles, or a tiny bit smaller than the area within the city limits of Salem; it would fit into Portland a little more than four times over, and eyeballing a map suggests that the city is barely over four miles wide at its widest point (the greater Paris "sprawl" covers more than 1,000 square miles, but around there, when we say a city's name, we mean within the city limits, not metro area, which a lot of people think. As long as we're digressing, it's real cozy within the Boulevard Peripherique: almost 2.2 million people live within those 34 square miles. Howdy, Neighbor! (or better, Allo, voisin!)).

I did mention the Boulevard Peripherique, which is the circular highway that follows the bounds of Paris, limiting it physically as well as jurisdictionally. That points us in the direction that I want to take us. Check out this simplified map of Paris, nicked from the site Parisnet.com:

Pay special attention to the Boulevard (the circular highway picked out in red and the sweep of the Seine River as it flows into, through and out.

Got it? Okay, let's get to the metro.

The Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens, or RATP, which translates to "Autonomous Operator of Paris Transport", I'm told, is the transit operator for Greater Paris. Now, when you have a city that is renowned for its passion in arts, in history, in romance, and in ... well, passion, and is personified as female, how can you combine all this thought into a simple, memorable, and elegant mark?

Well, here's the RATP's logo. Let the reader judge:

Is it not nifty? The Boulevard Peripherique has been graphically simplified into a teal circle. The Seine traces a familiar route, but a few small kinks have been added, giving the result of a profile that seems decidedly feminine. The face looks up, seemingly in expectation and hope. The two forms combine to express the unique feminine personality of Paris, and the cool colors with a soft pastel hint evoke the artistic and emotional. And, despite the graphical changes, the general geographical layout of the city is still suggested.

I find it a deft combination of romance and apt and fashionable design.

You can't get any better than that, at least as far as goes with Paris.

Technorati Tags: logo design, transit logos, paris france, ratp, graphic design

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Karl Malden's Nose Nowhere In Sight: The Street Signs Of San Francisco

1899.Another day, a new correspondent, and a new addition to the League of Extraordinary Street Sign Bloggers. I'd like to introduce you all to the collection of one Eric Fischer, habitué of the streets (and signs thereon) of San Francisco.

The design of the San Francisco street blade is unique, at least to this Oregonian. The most notable thing is what it doesn't contain: the generic (or street type). The only name on an SF street blade is the specific name (actual street name); for instance, one must know a priori that Grove is a Street as opposed to an Avenue.

I'm guessing.

The real cool thing about SF street blades is how user-friendly they are. You know that this is the 500 block of Grove and which the direction of increase; you know that that is the 600 block of Octavia and the direction of its increase. Knowing basic facts about SF geography also tells you which direction to go to get in the general direction of downtown, though a bit of local knowledge is necessary; I've never been to SF, but I know enough about it to know that if you're in the area in the northwest corner of the city, I believe it's called "The Avenues", the block tells you how far west of the street's beginning you are.

There's another tricky thing about SF of which I'm aware. While there's a standard 100-numbers to the city block going, and there are several gridironed areas, the blocks on those streets relate to the nearest baseline, not the grid.

Here's an example. Anyone with a passing knowledge of SF knows how important a street Market Street is. It's not only an important dividing line between neighborhoods and city sections, but it's also the address base for that area.

Read up Google maps and zoom in to the area of Market where Geary, Ofarrell (I find it interesting that Ofarrell is apparently official spelt without an apostrophe ("O'Farrell"), but that's another program). If you zoom in close enough you'll find that all addresses north of Market depend on how many blocks north or west of Market you are. Since Market runs on a diagonal against those streets north of it, the address blocks don't stay constant north-south-east-west, they actually stagger in parallel to Market. 

For example, the block of Geary between Market/Kearny and Grant is the 10's block, between Grant and Stockton is the 100 block, and Stockton to Powell is 200. However, the street paralelling Geary to the south, Ofarrell, has the 10's between Market/Grant and Stockton, and 100s between Stockton and Powell. The same block of adjacent parallel streets in that area is offset by +100 as you go north from Market, and +100 similarly as you travel west from Market. The areas south of Market respect its own grid only because the streets are perpendicular and parallel to Market.

Well, enough dry address grid talk, let's see a few of the treats that Eric has gathered. His flickr stream includes these gems:

Unlike Portland, SF has preserved a great number of its oldstyle street signs, something I wish Portland had done. This is a particularly charming example.

Also, if you're at the end of a street, you know it for sure:

Not only do the old signs get nailed to buildings, the new ones do too. And it looks like a local either just predated or postdated the installation.

I just love that tab with the END on it. Nothing like it anywhere else that I've seen.

I enjoy this pair of blades:

Which suggests that Stanford Heights begins at Melrose, and the beginning of Melrose is off the left a few blocks.

And, apparently, SF has its own street renaming fashion after notable notables from US history, but does it nonstandardly:

The lettering looks a little Futuraish to me.

Eric's flickr stream is called WalkingSF, which means it's not just SF street signs and blades (though there are a lot) there's a great deal of just nifty street and architecture pics of San Fran, and by the end, you feel lilke you've walked around SF with Eric for a while, and it's an interesting walk.

Of course, I couldn't leave it without sharing this:

Of course, if 15th Ave and 14th Ave are one block apart, it's a simple matter to make it curve to the side one block if you want to tee it off. But being able to say "The corner of 14th and 15th" just has that absurd sound to it.

As I said, Eric's flickr stream, WalkingSF, is here.

He has a LJ blog here (he learned about our Great Renaming from me). Of course, both links are now in the sidebar.

Enjoy, signfans! Thanks, Eric!

Technorati Tags: street blades, san francisco, san francisco street blades, street blade design, sign design

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A Smoke-Free Dutch Mafia!

1899.One of the more popular bits of Dutch Bros Coffee ephemera is the "Dutch Mafia" sticker, showing a sunglass-wearing mook puffing on a cigar with the words "Dutch Mafia" in the company's signature Peignot Bold font.

Funny, gets the point across. We drink only the Bros here. Capsice?

But with the new year a lot of people make a new start, and that includes our Dutch Mafia enforcer:

It is just me, or does he seem a little more cheeful now?

Well, for my money, if you're going to obsess over coffee instead of cigars, that would be my choice!

And those of you who have a Dutch Mafia fellow smoking a cigar ... congratulations! You have a collector's item now.

Technorati Tags: liff in oregon, coffee culture, coffee graphic design, typography, image management, Dutch Bros Coffee, coffee collectibles

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In The Days of KVDO-Salem's Channel 3

1898.Some time in the past I redrew, from my memory and from what little was available on the intarmets, the logo for KVDO Channel 3, Salem, Oregon.

Very few people today remember KVDO Channel 3, but it was Salem's first licensed TV station. If anyone at all remembers it, it's because it moved to Bend to become the OPB outlet for the central Oregon area ... and a local viewer was upset enough about it that he went out to the transmitter site in the south Salem hills and cut a guy wire on the tower, bringing it down (acutally, not necessarily in that order ... I may have these events out of sequence. But, sally forth!).

Those were good times for local TV viewers in Salem though. Nice to have a station you could call hometown. After blathering some about it and seeing what KVDO had for one evenings viewing, though, moved a commenter who identified himself as "Ken" to give me a bit clearer view of what it was like to run an independent TV station in the shadow of Portland during the 1970s, and his comment is so good, I thought I'd share it here. Take it away, Ken:

KVDO channel 3 was the first TV station licensed to Salem and was well known in the area. One of KVDO was the lack of available programming. This was in the days prior to Sat's and small format tape. Master control consisted of three quad 2" machines and a film chain of 3 16mm and one dual 35mm slide drum. This was also Salem’s only news cast until KECH 22 for a short time ran news. News was a three man cast, two talent and a MCR operator. The "talent" did double duty in that when not on the air they were the camera operators so when one was on air the other ran camera.

One must remember in those days news was all on film and in B&W. I have been told but other in the know KVDO demise happened in a major part with something good for them bad got a Portland station. When a tower was cut in Portland KVDO became a network during the repair. The network rating went way up because KVDO not only covered Portland but the Eugene (at the time there was only 2 networks in Eugene). This got the attention of some people and they did everything they could do remove this potential problem. About 1 to 2 years later KVDO was sold to KEZI Eugene and then to OEPBS (now OPB). OEPBS ran channel 3 for a couple of years and then had the channel moved to Bend Oregon in exchange moving channel 32 allocation to Salem (now KRCW).

Even today with the right aged crowd if you say KVDO a vast majority say “oh I remember it” main in that this was a “SALEM station” vs. a “Portland” station. Programming was not the best but in the late 60’s and 70’s it was something to watch/ whether it was TV shows, news Salem “live” wrestling, roller derby or movies it was one of only 4 stations to watch.

Thanks for the extra information, Ken. I had no idea how much travail one had to face in running a station in Salem during those days, and there was so little to see over the air ... and what adventure there seemed to be in bringing local TV to the mid-Willamette Valley.

These days, KWVT Channel 17 is covering the Salem area. With its coverage area I have no way of viewing the programming, but think it's nifty that Salem have its own station and it must be pleasing the locals, because it's still going strong.

Technorati Tags: KVDO Channel 3, Salem Oregon, Oregon Broadcast History, Oregon Television

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Don't Think Of A Bear

1897.(h/t to the indispensable Larry Fire for this visual treat). In the last discourse I challenged you to dare to view the secret hiddent in the FedEx logo (if you didn't know it) but didn't refer to it (and still wont) because as the blogger I linked to correctly observed, once you see it you cannot unsee it (well, at least not without a conscious effort).

Today I have another visual joke, but it's not so distracting.

Many of us enjoy Toblerone (indeed it is yummy). But there is a reference to the birthplace of the world-famous candy hidden in the logo. The logo of Toberone combines a distinctive type treatment and color scheme with a high-contrast representation of the Matterhorn – that iconic Swiss peak on the Italian frontier in the Pennine Alps (for those of you who like climbing, it's a "fourteener"):

If you know the history of Toblerone, you know it was born in Berne, Switzerland. It is said that the name of the city was inspired by a bear (der Bär, in German) that the city's founder killed in the area, and you're probably already seeing the visual joke. Since I told you what to look for, then you probably are now seeing it. But if you don't see it yet, let's zoom in on the mountain:

... and here's the bear:

The Matterhorn's steep sides usually allow for very little snow to cling to the sides, giving a variegated surface that lends itself easily to such graphic trompe l'oeil.

Technorati Tags: logo design, visual tricks, toblerone

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Don't Think Of An Arrow

1896. What Long Story, Short Pier says is true. If you don't know it, you don't see it. Once you do, you can never put it out of your mind.

Follow this link at your own risk.

Technorati Tags: logo design, fed ex logo, famous logos

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The Obama Transition Announces The Official Inaguration Poster

1896.(Via Huffington Post) Here is the offical poster for the inaugural celebration of President Obama:

It's designed by Shepherd Fairey and continues the rather exciting graphic approach seen during the campaign, with a very limited, posterized color palette and the dynamic play of flat color.

HuffPo sees it this way:

It is the next step in the branding of the presidency -- a development that is not unique to Obama but one that he has used better than any other politician in recent memory.

Fairey's initial design -- a guerrilla style, dark-colored portrait of the then-candidate -- proved to be a political and cultural phenomenon during the campaign. The current edition plays heavily off those themes and it seems likely to be a major symbol during the inauguration festivities. The image will be available on buttons, lapel pins, stickers and t-shirts.

As a designer, I'd say that "guerilla style" is pretty much in the eye of the beholder. But that's as may be. I do agree on the branding viewpoint; if there were a Nobel Prize in Marketing, whoever's driving Obama's branding deserves it, hands down.

Regardless of what you think of him, it's hard to deny that, in the context of the buttoned-down world of USA politics, it's like a firework exploding. It's exciting and very new. I enjoy this style; it takes the average world of political visual design and splashes a big dash of hot sauce on it.

Technorati Tags: Obama, 2008 inaguration, American politicians, political graphic design, political branding, President Obama, USA_Politik

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Linotype's Free FontExplorerX Is Going Pro ... Get It While It's Still Free

1895.A real crowd-pleaser of recent times in the font-management arena, certainly at least partly because it delivered a lot of functionality and was free, was Linotype's FontExplorerX.

The free love affair has come to an end.

The newest version of FontExplorerX, called FontExplorerX Pro, is available until 28 Feb at a reduced license price of USD $39, and after that USD $79. It's now a member of a product line that includes a server version as well.

Your info source is fontexplorerx.com.

If, OTOH, if you'd like to nab a copy of FontExplorerX 1.23 for Mac archiving, which is still free, you can go here. There is also a link to the Win version from that page.

It will be available there until it isn't, whenever that happens. Downside: as far as support, you're probably on your own.

Technorati Tags: LInotype, FontExplorerX, FontExplorerX Pro, font management software

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Cesar Chavez Blvd Renaming Plan Not Going Smoothly

1895.What's that, you say? Yeah, you know, you've heard it?

It's not Portland's Interstate Avenue ... it's Dallas Texas's Industrial Blvd (note, this verbiage was current as of about seven months ago (and the full story at that time is here–courtesy The Dallas News):

The choice of Mr. Chávez – a U.S. native who became the nation's leading advocate for farmworkers – has generated strong feelings around Dallas about the region's ongoing demographic shift, illegal immigration and the legacy of Mr. Chávez himself.

And this morning, as the council's Trinity River Project Committee gets set to vote on the new name, many of those issues could sit through the meeting like elephants in the room.

Here's a view of the street they wanted to rename courtesy Google Maps Street View:

Yes, that is a bail bondsman's shop on the right there. No, I didn't go out of my way to find one; reading on the subject characterized the road by describing its run of parking lots and bail bond shops (here's a link to the view). This from the Wall Street Journal:

"Industrial Boulevard" is an apt name for the gritty strip of warehouses, bail-bond offices and liquor stores that runs parallel to the Trinity River on the western edge of this Texas city's urban core.

Where the process (which, apparently, they actually followed one) went off the rails (depending on where you stand on this) was when a survey of Dallas citizens returned a poll of 43% of the population favoring honoring the labor movement legend. This possibly generated fear and loathing amongst the 57% of Dallasaisans (Dallians? Dallasers? Ewings?) who weren't so hot on that idea (again, WSJ):

The name game did succeed in garnering local interest -- just not in the way officials had hoped. Instead, it sparked a rancorous power struggle between the city's growing Hispanic population and its entrenched Anglo and black leadership.

Dallas officials' 'uh-oh' moment came when they received the results of their summer survey. Having favored scenic-sounding names such as Riverfront and Trinityview for the waterside development, officials were stunned by the top choice: "Cesar Chavez Boulevard."

I love it that they called it an 'uh-oh' moment.

Anyway, this turned the easy, breezy process into a drama laden thing.

The vote was had, and what did they choose? Let's turn to the WSJ one more time for the answer. Fast-forward to roughly the present:

Last month, the 15-member Dallas City Council put an end to at least part of the debate by voting to rename Industrial Boulevard "Riverfront Boulevard," with only the three Hispanic members opposing.

The council also voted to allow Ross Avenue to keep its name. The city now hopes to assuage Hispanics by finding another suitable street or landmark to bear the Chavez name, though Hispanics leaders say they will sign off only on a suitably prominent thoroughfare.

You think we have enough trouble getting things done with a five member city commission? Imagine if we had 15 members ...

At least, here in PDX, we're all bickering about the process. I don't think anyone would have a problem with a Cesar Chavez Blvd somewhere in Portland if people would just follow the rules (that, in the advocates' defense, have been routinely broken from Naito up through Rosa Parks). If a city where more people than probably live in Portland voted in favor of Sr. Chavez can't even name a street after him, in a city whose land used to be in Mexico, what about that?

Food for thought. Irony of ironies.

Oh, here's the WSJ article I was referring to. Compelling reading.

Technorati Tags: Cesar Chavez, street renaming, dallas tx

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Interesting Map Design: The Interstate Highway Grid, Simplified

1894.And, to raise the tone a bit from the sombre, here's a stumbled-on find. In 2007, graphical artist Chris Yates must have read a description of the numbering system of the US Interstate Highway net and said to himself gee, that sounds like it should be represented on a funkily-styled grid. And that's just what he did:

Here's where you can view it bigly.

Travel your USA ... schematically.

This is Chris Yates' page. Nifty!

Technorati Tags: graphic design, map design, info design, chris yates

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Lost Friends, 2008

1893. The travails of the last several months have been seemingly bracketed by two very sad events. One I've mentioned, one I can now mention. Thier passing seemed oddly appropriate, during a very dire season of a rather difficult year.

About three months ago (I could look up the date but it's still a little painful), I lost a friend and a teacher I knew in the SCA as Ciaran Cluana Ferta, but "mundanely" as Brian Russell.

Brian was a singular guy. He died of complications from heart disease and a long battle with diabetes; he was only in his upper fifties (as seems true with many such people I knew who have endured such travails, he looked a bit older than that but he was taking care of himself as best he could and I thought he had a few more miles on the clock).

In the past I've given Jeff Fisher much credit for inspiring me to go for a career as a designer, which is true, but few people have just one inspiration. Brian was one. You see, before I had pretentions to be a graphic designer, I just loved drawing. Brian saw this, and in his persona as an SCA monk-on-the-run (long story) and my natural affinity for other heralds, he knew just the thing I needed to do: draw coats-of-arms.

And this I did. And as I got good at it (and I got good, I will blow my own horn here loudly) and then got into graphic design, I realized that heraldic art was not only technical drawing but also medieval graphic design. The designer in this case can add some style, but you're working withing a canon and toward accomplishing someone else's goal, and if you like designing, you understand that the real charge isn't sometimes so much in creating the graphic art, but watching it do its job whether or not you get the credit right away.

One of the greatest compliments was paid me by Brian. A long time habitue of British and Irish culture (he claimed to hold dual USAan/Irish citizenship and could even speak some Irish Gael) he told me that he thought that my work was good enough to stand aside anything the English College of Arms did. I had my own style and loved it; but at the same time, I know when it's time to put your style in the service of something bigger.

At the time he died, he was involving me on another project, the creation of a battle roll-of-arms of the Battle of Barnet, one of the Wars of the Roses. What I got done before he left us has been so far recorded in one of my other blogs, Creating the Roll. It is currently in abeyance, a victim of other centrifugal forces both as a result of his passing and not.

There is so much to say about Brian. He was married, divorced and was about to be remarried when his wife was taken from him in a pointless twist of fate; he served some years as a monk (an actual one) in a small monastery in Georgia, of all places (the one here in the USA); he worked for many years at Broadway Cab, which is what he was doing when I came to know him; the last decade or so of his life, not so physically prosperous. But he was happy. He had his lady love, a good life, the admiration of friends. He loved music and wrote liturgically, and served the world via his website (go here to get it all) and was renouned for the amount of music he made available to people.

He was my friend and a teacher, and, looking back on it, he was the big brother I never had.

The other person that left us and inspired me was also interesting, a character, who loved the law. He was trained legally but did not hang himself out a shingle; he worked the courts up in Thurston County, Washington. His name was David Hunter, and he was styled David Hunter of Montlaw.

David had something that you and I and not everyone you know had; he could prove descent from one of the clans of Scotland, and this gave him the right to petition the Lord Lyon ... the chief heraldic officer of Scotland ... to matriculate suitably differenced arms.

He was the closest thing I knew of to an authentic Scots laird, altho I'm aware I may be using that term incorrectly. But one thing's certain; he was proud of being officially "matriculated", as the term of art is, and even though I was rather envious, I certainly wouldn't begrudge him that. His arms, as rendered, are illustrated here; the blazon is:

Vert a cross-crosslet Argent square-pierced Gules on a chief engrailed Argent three hunting horns Vert stringed and viroled Gules

Which, translated into English, means "On a green field, a cross with crosspieces on the ends with a red square in the middle, with a white stripe across the top with a cup-scalloped line of division three green horns with red ties on".

You can see why heraldry needs a specialized language. For the complete glory of the arms, including a description of the stuff on top (the crest), go here. If you're a Herald and you don't go "that there's some good stuff, boy", then there's something wrong with you.

He was a really really smart Herald, whom we knew in the SCA as Baron David of Moffat (for reasons too complicated to explain here, you can't necessarily have your own name as a registered SCA tag ... and no self-respecting Herald, in my opine, would be seen for long without a registered name (mine's Sebastian zem Sterne, FWIW). Perhaps it was his legal training, but he could argue a contrary point of view and never make you feel as though he was just contradicting you for contradiction's sake. He was one of the whetstones we sharpened our minds against. Helped, of course, that he was right more often than wrong.

But perhaps a more defining mark was that was how he did every dog-gonned thing he ever tried superbly, as a matter of fact, it seemed almost unfair, the way he was so accomplished and made it look so easy. For him, it seemed as automatic as breathing air. For this he was sometimes referred to by some in our group by a dubbing I hacked out of the comic strip Sylvia: "The Baron Who Does Everything More Beautifully Than You".

But for the apparent snark thereon, it was actually a compliment. Sure, he seemed to do everything well and effortlessly, but he shared what he knew and would talk endlessly about it if you were interested. Just like the rest of us in the SCA, he tried to pass on what he knew in teaching. And you could do much, much worse as a teacher than Baron David of Moffat, quite easily you could do worse.

David was a type 1 diabetic who seemed to be doing quite fine. He was in his mid-forties, if memory serves. His death was as unexpected as it was untimely. I still don't feel as though I've done proper pennance for poking fun at him, which I did with maybe too much glee from time to time, because he was a much better and smarter man than I.

Each one of these two men did quite a lot to motivate and inspire me. And, just like humans everywhere, I rather took them for granted. I'm sorry about that. We will not see thier like again.

But at least I got to know them for a while, and I can carry that inspiration forward, as long as I remember them. I'm thankful for the chance that I had to know them.

Technorati Tags: passings, absent friends, Ciaran Cluana Ferta, Baron David of Moffatt, SCA, Kingdom of AnTir, Heraldry

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One Man's Trash ...

1892. A sign of the times: Bernard Madoff Securities, Inc logo apparel, briefcases, post-it notes, and what not ... on sale at eBay. Now.

Supplies, as they say, are limited.

Technorati Tags: Bernie Madoff, Ponzi Scheme, Weird and Funny, The New Great Depression, Financial Meltdown 2009, Ponzi

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Buy Me Some Peanuts, Cracker Jack, and A Little National Exposure

1892. Something I happened upon in surfing my Sitemeter links ...

This here entry at the blog Providence Daily Dose, which celebrates the ascension of Sam Adams (not the beer one) to the PDX mayoralty, using this bit of photoshoppery:

... as the illustration. I was quite proud when I did it, and was very happy when it garnered this blog over 700 views in two days, which to me is like striking gold (props to Bogdanski for linking to it, though even though I came out with more such cards, everyone lost interest after I did Sho Dozono. I really put in some work on the Kyle Burris card ...)

So, thanks, Providence Daily Dose, for featuring my card as your illustration today. Thrilled and flattered, thrilled and flattered!

Technorati Tags: satire, Portland Oregon, PDX, Portland politics, Sam Adams, Portland Mayor

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At Least One Thing I Want To Do This Year ...

1891. ... would be to create a zine of some sort.

I've really been getting into the zines I can find at the Midland branch of the library, which is the closest one to me. There was a really well-done one called Steampunk Magazine which has caused a household-wide interest in Steampunk in general (also those wonderful steampunk-y laptop casemods I've been seeing on BoingBoing.

I don't know what all will be in it yet (of course I could do it on design but we all know how easily distracted I am).

We'll be playing around with this. Make it fun and find a way to add value to the communication. Stuff like that.

Technorati Tags: ZehnKatzen, Samuel John Klein, 2009, Stuff To Do

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A Trip On The Tram ... A Long View for the New Year

1891. I must be cautious lest I read too much into passing events, but we celebrated today with a ride on the Portland Tram.

It's supposed to be costing taxpayers a bundle. At least, the ride is nice, as is the view.

Here's a video I made with the might plastic fantastic Vivitar VivCam 3705, as recieved and posted by YouTube: