Wednesday, September 22, 2010

It's All in Process

I really didn't realize how disruptive improving your environment can be. In upgrading the floors in the downstairs of our humble adobe, we have upped the value of the condo by far, but after the dust settled, it seems like nothing else did.

Example No. 1: The fountains.

We have two fountains (correction: had two fountains), one on the patio and one in the corner of the dining room. They're a feng shui thing, and, more important, I like the sound of moving water.

The fountain on the patio was an asian-inspired design, rendered in cast Fiberglas and resin. (Here's a picture of Beuford in the fountain, taken when we weren't quite sure where his permanent home would be.)

We've had the fountain for almost five years. Over that time, it has gotten its share of calcium deposits and algae growth, and it's on its second pump. So, before I replaced it on the new slate patio, I decided to get some bad-ass cleaning solution and scrub it clean.

Bad idea. It leaked. So I put aquarium epoxy in all the suspect places, putting it forth from the tube as liberally as buttercream frosting onto a cake. It still leaked. So I got some even badder-ass rubberized coating designed for the undercarriage of trucks. Six coats later, the fountain still leaked.

I'm intent on tossing the base, but I really like the twisted column top, so I'm holding onto that and hoping I can find some suitable squarish container to house it and the pump. Nothing has presented itself yet.

The second fountain many of you have seen, since I've had it for 12 years. It's in a blue hexagonal bowl and was made of rocks I collected from of a stream at Montana de Oro State Beach. It was a favorite meditation place for me, and I thought I'd build the fountain to take the sound with me when I found out I was moving to Los Angeles.

Over the years, the sandstone rocks have leached their minerals and were crumbling amidst a growth of furry deposits. When the slate flooring went in, I was hoping there would be some remnants left that I could use to build a more durable fountain from, but the guy used every last tile.

So we went out to Home Depot and found slate tiles on sale: five for $7.95. I spent a day or so last week smashing up neatly honed 12x12 tiles into craggy chunks that I could then fashion into a fountain.

It's like riding a bike, you know; building fountains. The last time I constructed one was the last time I was unemployed, and I'm not quite sure how I felt about rebuilding the same fountain here in the midst of this spate unemployment. I'll have to ponder on that and let you know.

So, after the demise of the fish on the Nazi Bunker weekend and the removal of the aquarium, and the decrepitude of our two fountains, there is no moving water in the house, save the dishwasher and the occasional toilet flush. Well, there is the lone surviving fish in his half-gallon plastic aquarium, but that's smaller than a pitcher of beer, so I don't think it has a lot of impact on our chi.

Looks like it's off to the hardware store today to pick up more aquarium epoxy to polish off the one fountain I can complete on my own.

Anyone with any brilliant ideas about where I can find an organic-looking vessel, approximately 2 feet square by 8 to 12 inches deep, drop me a line and I'll get the patio fountain back online.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

An Anniversary

While everyone is focusing on this as the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attack, I have to report that it is the third anniversary of the beginning of this blog. Odd that it should have fallen on such a date, but there you are. Here's the first entry:

My friend Kathy has a blog, and I was so taken by it I decided to try one.

I have nothing to say at this point. I am still working out the bugs in figuring out how to get this up and running.

Perhaps profound things will be said here. I really doubt it. Once I get things going and get familiar with the lay of the cyberland here, I may add pictures and such. Just getting this first message up on the site is enough for me now, though.

I'm assuming Kathy has abandoned her blog, since the last entry was about two years ago. She has found Facebook a much better way to keep in touch, and in a lot of ways, she's right. I check Facebook far more often than I do the blog. In fact, I only visit here when I'm making an entry.

I was going to celebrate this anniversary with a revealing of the "before" and "after" pictures of the new flooring downstairs, but with all the changes that the remodel incurred, not everything has found a new home yet.

We've removed the aquarium for the time being, since all but one of the fish died during our fumigation exile, and a lot of the tchotchkes that populated the living room in our "before" phase simply no longer have homes. So we're planning on doing a culling of items, opening up some space, and getting ready for the new look.

This would have been achieved this week, except Steve came down with a really bodacious bout of gastrointestinal flu on Monday evening and was out of commission for a day or so. Then I came down with it on Thursday and am only now recovering. This being so, the week was kind of shot as far as domestic projects went.

Another victim of the remodel was the fountain out on the patio. After a good cleaning, I set it back up and it is now leaking from mysterious sources somewhere in the base. A generously applied tube of aquarium epoxy did nothing to stem the trickle, so I'm thinking the exterior finish has simply eroded to the point where it is no longer viable. So there's something else to shop for this weekend.

I continue sending out resumes and still here little back. I'm working this month with the Foothill Employment and Training Center, and have gotten lots of support and encouragement, but nothing in the way of a solid interview, much less a job offer.

The website for Pearce Plastics is now complete, including a pretty cool 70-second introductory Flash animation. The only parts missing are those that the client has not yet provided (which have been weeks in coming and have still not been done). I'm going to have to push them hard, I think, because the site is contractually supposed to be online by the 25th of this month and there will several days worth of work to get this final information onto the pages and properly coded.

It doesn't help that the owner of the company (a nonagenarian) simply will not turn on his computer and look over the site. He wants me to print it all out (140 pages!) so he can look at it. His wife is a little younger and a little more responsive, but it will still be an uphill grind, no matter what.

So, hopefully we'll get things situated in the next week for appropriate "after" pictures and there will be something interesting to look at in the next entry. Until then, everyone keep well and happy: That's my plan.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

It Is Finished

A wonderful feeling. The bamboo guy finished with the floors and put on the new baseboards this afternoon, so we are now finished with the remodeling for now. We have yet to return all the stuff that we removed from the living room and dining room, so no before and after pictures just yet.

Tomorrow I'm going in to the Foothill Training and Employment Center (the service arm of the EDD here in California) for a job search strategy workshop and an appointment with their business liaison. Seems I'm one of the 25 top employable yet unemployed people in the WIA program (which is where I got my web design training).

When they want to know what my dilemma is, I think my answer is fairly straightforward: you say you have web design training and everyone asks, "Where are the websites you've designed?" It's like being in my 20s again, and everyone wants two years of experience before they hire you, but you can't get the two years of experience until someone will give you a job. My two decades of design work don't seem to count for much of anything in those situations.

I did make application for a senior designer position with the Museum of Natural History of Los Angeles County. Sounds like a really interesting position.

Tonight I found a listing for e5 Global Media (the company that bought the Hollywood Reporter from Nielsen) for the position of Art Director at the Reporter. I could not help myself and applied for the position. There has been a big change in staffing and management and, who knows, perhaps the fit would be perfect.

I have a feeling Deeann will probably apply for the position as well (although she doesn't know web design and they specifically requested that), since she was art director there for almost 16 years. I doubt if either of us would get any calls, but stranger things have happened. I am not, however, holding my breath on this one.

With an all-new creative management staff hired from Us Weekly magazine, I think they want to go in fresh new directions. I'm all for that; when I was there, there was too much status quo for me, even during the redesign process. And if they do call me in for an interview, I would go because I want to move forward, not because I'm looking to go back to the old turf: Same building but a new century is the only way to go with publication these days.

Stay tuned for the before and after pictures of the house, just as soon as I get out the camera and everything has found its way back downstairs, which will be soon, I hope: This office is crowded.