Salt Dough Art

Pikachu without his stripes.

Pikachu, a white version.

Front view.

Bunny Bust

8-bit Joy

Figures of Pac-Man and Ghost made from salt dough.

What do the ghosts talk about as they wait for the level to begin?

"Run for your life!"

"Hey guys! A little help here!"

Happy Red

This sketch took about 2 minutes to do. I did it on a whiteboard using three different dry-erase markers: black, red, and blue. I was a challenge to control my hand without steadying my arm against the board. The outcome made me happy.
This second picture is a vectorized version of the first. I used Inkscape to draw over the digital photo of the sketch and to add color. It was fun to learn how to draw with Inkscape, but there is still a lot I need to learn. This second image looks flat in comparisan with the first.

Animation

Animation is so much more than "for kids" that American culture has made it out to be. Nor does it have to be pornographic, crass, or unintelligible to be "not just for kids." The best animation is more than just an artistic show piece. The best animation shows that moving pictures are a way to tell a story, any story, whether those pictures contain live-action or animated frames.

The following is a list of my picks for good animated films. They are separated by into MPAA ratings categories.

G
Cat's Don't Dance (1997)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)
The Thief and the Cobbler (1993)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Ponyo (2008)

PG
The Incredibles (2004)
The Secret of Kells (2009) (not rated)
How to Train a Dragon (2010)

PG-13
Princess Mononoke (1997)

There are also several television cartoons which I believe are great examples of animation and/or storytelling.

Reboot
Beast Wars
Simpsons

Summer Projects

Summer vacation is short for me this year as I will be teaching and taking classes. I still want to get a few things done around the house, though. Here is the list of this years Summer projects:

1. Install cupboards in laundry room
2. Install shelves in girl's room
3. Plant blueberry bushes
4. Lay black plastic in garden to keep the weeds down
5. Dig holes and install posts and fencing around garden
6. Dig out planters and check them for ants
7. Add ~8 in. more insulation in the attic
8. Install attic access
9. Install attic shelves
10. Insulate garage walls -- [Partly completed]
11. Finish garage wall -- [Partly completed]
12. Install shelves in garage
    
13. Install 2x4 with hooks to hang tools
14. Replace trim in master bathroom
15. Caulk bath in master bathroom
16. Recaulk kitchen and guest bathroom
17. Hang whiteboard in study
18. Dig stumps out of back yard
19. Remove sod for garden beds -- [Partly completed]
20. Remove and replace planter in front of house
21. Install fence rails around patio
    

LHC Rap

While I was checking out physics graduate programs around the country, I recently stumbled upon this video produced by a Ph.D. physicist, Kate Alpine, at Michigan State U. It describes what the LHC does and what scientists hope to discover from it. Science can be both entertaining and educational!

If you missed the link just paste http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM into your browser.

Oh! Honestly!

I try to keep up on news and goings on in my field. I am woefully inconsistent in my outside studies, but today I saw this bit of news from the American Institute of Physics about the Large Hadron Collider. Some of you may know more about the hype following the completion of this experiment facility than me as we don't have a TV and I don't really follow the news. It seems that some people believe, contrary to the physics and all reason, that smashing atoms together will produce blackholes which will consume the Earth. This is in spite of the fact that physicists have been smashing atoms for years, though I grant we have not been smashing them together at the kind of speeds LHC was built to attain.

I marvel at how people's minds work sometimes, but if a radio show can create a nation-wide panic about a martian invasion (i.e. War of the Worlds) then it is not so strange that erroneous theories predicting doomsday can gain world wide noteriety.