Grave Reflections: June 2007

Mortuary Maori Magnificence!

On Friday, Karissa's sister came and got Isabella for the night, so we decided to take advantage of the night off and do something a little different. We made a reservation at Sanders for some appetizers, then headed off to Whitey's for a dinner. We've always heard of people doing stuff like that, so we thought we'd try it.

It wasn't really too bad. Sanders can be alittle out of our element (a little high brow), but we haven't been in there for a long time, and there is a cool artistic thing about the place. At Whiteys, we lowered the brow and had some beer.

Saturday found us at Kevin & April's lake cabin. It was humid as hell, but an otherwise beautiful day. I got a wicked sunburn that would make beef jerky jealous, and I got to bring my ukulele along for a little musical entertainment. Kevin showed me some old National Geographic magazines they had come upon in the cabin, one of which from 1984 included an article about the Maoris of New Zealand, where I found a photo of a figure named Hukere, who was a guardian of the dead, and promptly sketched out as you see above. The figure, I think, is actually a trunk containing the dyed-red bones of a chief. Cool stuff, and a freaky looking figure.

My interview went okay. It was actually two interviews. The first was with the Human Resources person, which wasn't great. She didn't seem to warm up to me. The second was with the head pathologist, which went better. She explained a lot to me about the job that wasn't in the description, and actually put me at ease as far as the scheduling goes.

Before I say any more, I will finally describe what a diener is to those who haven't looked it up yet. A diener is an assistant to the pathologist, who prepares the morgue and body for autopsies. Job description includes removing and weighing organs, blood sampling, even eye removal for donors. Also, depending on who I'm working with, I may be doing the actual Y-cut itself. I never thought it would be this hands-on, and I'm excited now more than ever to do it.

I won't know until almost mid-July if I'm hired or not. If I am, I'll have to train and observe a few autopsies before getting into it.

Golden Brown note: This week will be the next page, but next week I'll be posting a one-page cartoon I did for Ernie, the Travelodge owner. He was very concise in what he wanted me to do, and seemed very impressed at the finished result. It's been exciting times around here, lately, so I'm glad I've been able to get a little ahead. But you people will still have to wait.

These are the first inked points I've done in the archaeology lab. There'll be plenty more, but I've had to get used to the routine all over again. These are also still in rough stages. Some need to be cleaned up a little, some horizontal lines taken out, etc.

Picture Pages, Picture Pages (I think I've used that title before)

I'm trying to get back into painting, but it's hard to get up the nerve after so little experience and so long a break. It'll come, though.
I did a little cartoon for Ernie, my boss. He wanted something to put up on his wall, and gave me a pretty detailed description of what he was looking for. That was about a month ago and I've finally got around to getting it penciled.. I've been getting ahead on Golden Brown a little, which makes me less stressed about putting one out every week. I was tempted for about 2 minutes to put out two pages a week, but then I realized I've got too much else to do to keep that schedule up. Never fear, by midnight tonight a new page is going up. Things are picking back up just a bit as I'm trying to make a slow segway to a conclusion to this story.
Oh, and I will post the other cartoon as soon as I get it inked on the Bone Daddy blog.
Oh, and I have an interview Monday morning for the Diener job.

FotosaFariFarmersmarketFathersDayFFFF!!!

The weekend was fun. I got into the archaeology lab Friday to get started on my illustrating. It felt nice being back in that stuffy lab looking at projectile points, but I had a hard time getting started. It'll get better once I get into it.
On Saturday, we went to Farmer's Market and got a Juneberry pie and some kuchen samples. Next weekend Karissa hopes to get Rhubarb pie...mmmmmm...rhubarb...yeah.
Anyway, we also wandered into Poupoura for lunch. Some woman who managed a store in the Columbia Mall opened a Poupoura coffee shop in the mall, but recently was able to open another one downtown on 3rd st, right across from the town square. It's also one of many sites to see during Grand Forks' Art & Wine Walk every 3rd Saturday of the month. We're hoping in July we might finally be able to do the walk. Saturday afternoon found us in Whitey's Wonderbar with Karissa's mom for Karissa's belated birthday dinner (photo of Whitey's down a little ways on my blog under the ArtFest post).
Today, I called my dad to wish him a happy Fadda's Day, and Jas sent me a text message with the same. We really didn't celebrate anything other than me having an excuse to sit on the couch all day. As I type this, I'm sitting on the floor. Karissa already gave me my official Father's Day Ukelele Thursday, and today I settled down with my Father's Day IBC root beer, so I'm already pretty set.
Oh yeah, on Friday night I went on a little urban safari. It spanned 3 parking garages and a cemetery, and took about 3 hours before I finally made it home. I was bored and wanted cityscape photos--the drawback? I had to drive to do it instead of walk, because I wanted shots Grand Forks, not East Grand.

The safari begins here, at parking garage #1. I did get pictures of the high-school and some street scenes, as well as a view of the new apartment complex on 3rd st, but they didn't turn out very well. I experimented with my landscape and night settings on my camera, so the lighting is different with many of these. This one is a night setting. I didn't realize how much light the camera would grab for this, and it turned out really weird, but I love the way the buildings look.

View of the alley behind Bonzer's sandwich pub. Damn good sandwiches, and their drinks are mixed by hand...

This was taken from parking garage #1.

Up and to the left of the alley shot, I like this because you can see the Empire theater between the buildings.

A little closer up of the previous shot.

A cityscape scene taken with the night setting on my camera. More about this stuff a couple pics down...

I liked the fire escape on this one. If I hae to live in an apartment again, I'd want a 2nd floor or higher apartment with access to a fire escape. Up there, I could jam on my uke any time I wanted. Down below, Browning Arts. This is from parking garage #2.

Our oddly designed bus station. Right across the street is Urban Stampede, a coffee shop where Karissa used to work. Every night she would bitch about the lawyers & crazies that would wander in from the courthouse & bus station for a place to warm up.

Courthouse. Taken from parking garage #2.

The actual name of this park eludes me at the moment, but it's just a creatively used lot between buildings. Across the alley are Sanders (swanky bar/lounge-type place), and 3rd st Gallery, among other things.

I can't tell if that's writing on the side. The next shot in sequence is up and to the right.

This was another night-setting shot. It turned out all weird, and I liked it. It just a rooftop of an building across from parking garage #3.

The windows on this building warped the reflection and I thought it looked really cool.

Train bridge on the Red. Look a little further and find the brightly lit Sacred Heart Catholic School in East Grand Forks.

You may have noticed that this one has become part of my title. This turned out to be one of my favorites. Out at Memorial Cemetery in Grand Forks, there's a road near the main entrance with trees overarching in a classic cemetery fashion. I backed up the car, set the timer and let it shoot with the brakelights still on.

Awww, a Baby Guitar...

Who does this ukelele belong to? This guy!
Looky what I got for an early Father's Day present!
My gift to all you, a new page of Golden Brown on the Bone Daddy blog!

ArtFest!

This weekend ArtFest came to town. In the last couple of years, we got into the habit of going both days instead of just one, that way we didn't have to work to look at everything all at once. It was supposed to be storming all weekend, but it only rained a bit on Saturday, then stayed sunny the rest of the weekend. Isabella came down with a fever, but was excited to go outside and do stuff, so we gave her some medicine and just get watch over her during the outing. Most of the time one couldn't even tell she was running a fever, because she acted completely normal the whole time. She's a trooper.
We got another railroad depot illustration from John Cartwright, a wooden biplane for Isabella to go with her trains and cars (she sometimes likes them more than the fancy, high-tech crap), and I got to chat with some cool artists. One guy did paintings in the style of the Lascaux or Chauvet cave paintings in France.
I also got a couple business cards, which I collect. One guy did some impressive canvas/computer crossevers, his site is www.jmiller.myexpose.com.
Another I talked was a Texan woman was hardcore acrylic. She likes looking at other mediums, but refuses to work anything but acrylic. Although I won't refuse to try a different medium, I've grown to love acrylics myself for their ease of set-up and clean-up, so it was pretty cool seeing what she was able to do with it. Her site is www.judithcavazos.com.
All in all, a pretty cool weekend. I got to try awesome deep-fried walleye chunks (I normally HATE fish) and beer-batter fries with cheese. My digestive system gladly paid a hefty price.

Shot from the bridge of the Grand Forks side of the ArtFest. The shots below are all taken in East Grand Forks, and this is unfortunately the only ND pic I got.

John Cartwright's stand. I bought a Grand Forks Depot picture off him Saturday, within minutes of entering melee.

I always end up talking to this guy, and he's become one of my favorite visits during ArtFest. Someday I'll get him a Devils Lake depot shot. His website, if interested, is www.artrail.com.

Isabella taking finicky bites from her Coldstone Creamery Ice cream...

The next couple shots are just a couple city shots while we were walking to our car.

Whitey's Wonderbar on DeMers Ave. This place was a speakeasy back in the '20's, took shipments from Capone himself--or so I've heard.

Flashback's, right across the street from Whitey's. This guy sells a lot of antiques, also a lot of vintage-style stuff like metal signs and movie posters. There's probably nothing in there older than 1945, but still very cool retro stuff.

Drawing Like a Deadman!

The weeks are going so fast now, it feels like I still have June to look forward to, and it's already here! Get your ass in gear, Doug.
I got in touch with my old archaeology teacher at UND last week about doing some volunteer lab stuff. I haven't been in touch with anyone around there for 2 years, and I've been thinking a lot about going back to the lab for a little while now. Actually, I was thinking more about stretching my illustrating bone (yeah, it really exists--it's one of the tarsals on your foot. Go look it up!)
As luck would have it, she's doing an analysis of a site in Nevada and has a collection here that she would like illustrated--some of them I already had done during my indepedent studies while still at UND. She thought it would be a good idea, so I'm going to devote a few hours of my week to scientific endeavors once again. Also, I had done an illustration of a Mimbres pot for an article she was writing for a book, and the book finally came out! So I am officially a published illustrator. Granted, it's one book that will be read mainly be students, but still very cool.
I was telling Karissa the other day, on our way to see Kevin and April, about how I was approaching my summer schedule in a smart way by not overloading my plate. Then Kevin tells me about a position that's open at Altru for a flex-shift Diener. If you don't know what that is, I'm going to go ahead and let you guys look it up. I'm scared that I'll spread myself too thin, but Karissa's backing m on all this, and this particular job is one I've always wanted to try.
Well, I am off to Artfest! Good food, good art, good music, and a whole lot of walking around...an maybe some more good food.
--By the way, new Golden Brown will be out by 9:30am Friday. Just so you know.

A Devil's Run Weekend

Helluva weekend. Friday was a lazy day, which was fine, everyone needs one. Saturday we went to the parade, had fun, I had to snatch candy on the road before other kids did so Isabella could have some. Kevin, Darren and I went out to Kevin's place where we fired off his potato gun, possibly scaring neighbors and bewildering woodland creatures with spud mortars.
Saturday night we hit the street dance. It was fun because I got to take my Jack out into the street, but the music could have been better. No offense to those who like country music and Cheap Trick, but country music and Cheap Trick (to me) sucks.
Afterparty at Tab & Dereks motel room. I got to see the basement of the motel, which was fucking awesome and creepy. We may get to practice there! I got 4 hours of sleep that night and didn't feel very good in the morning.
We're back home now, and I look forward to this week. I contacted my old Anthro advisor and archaeology teacher, Dr. Leach about getting back into the lab, and she said she had some more stuff for me to illustrate if I was interested...which I totally am. So I'm going to be getting back into archaeological illustration! That's it for now, enjoy the pictures, then piss off!

What can three guys do with a sack of potatoes out in the boonies?

You cram them one at a time into a potato gun, what else? A little PVC, a little aerosal hairspray and a flint igniter come together to create three equally irresponsible idiots who want to fire spud missiles into the air.

This is a split second before he fired. Centuries from now, archaeologists will marvel at the blast patterns on the bark of random trees alledgedly created by projected ecofacts.

We had to tell her to pick up the candy before the other kids got to it. Some kids were polite and let her get a couple pieces, but most were ravenous little urchins who would have damn near taken the candy out of her hand...