I forgot to cross post this earlier from livejournal, so I'm making up for the omission:
Mr. Imagination ( aka Gregory Warmack aka Mr. "I" to his friends) is brought you by the search term "multimedia art"- Chicago born outsider artist. Outsider artists tend to be sorta cast out by their communities but not so in the case of Mr. I, his current PA community is rallying behind him after his home burned in January of this year, and much of his art was lost in the fire along with his dog and several cats. Info on what is being done to help him can be found here.
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You can see more of his art here
For more info on Mr. I and other talented outsider artists check out DetourArt a roadmap of self-educated art discoveries found along the back roads of the world, (no it doesn't just cover artists in the USA). ON the site sites in danger of disappearing are listed in case anyone wants to donate to help save them. It's a really fun site to wander around on. They also have a blog, in case you want to follow their travels. I was intrigued by the number of outsider artists who had near death experiences before they found art and started creating.
While I am posting, I'd like input on the best portable GPS system out there, yes it needs to be portable, we all know how good I am at killing vehicles.... any opinions? My daughter Karina is offering to get me one, I guess she is tired of getting lost with me. ;) IOW, the secret here is to act inept and she steps up to bat and helps out or throws money at the problem to fix it. Nice to know, I may start breaking dishes so she offers to load them into the dishwasher once in awhile.
Consider this a public service announcement.... and share the info in it with others at will please.
Pay attention people, Adsense is posting unrelated political ads bashing Barack Obama by implying he is a racist to pages focused on gardening and art... how they make that connection to politics and justify it as being related somehow is beyond me. I have only seen the Obama bashing ad, but there might be others focusing on other people running in state level elections.
My daughter uses Adsense ads on her blogs to generate money, or should I say she did until yesterday when she spotted one of these ads on her blog and got angry. She is not alone in her dismay: http://tinyurl.com/6nf69t
Just another reason to not vote for Hillary IMHO. She made have calmed down on the mud slinging but she has other people doing it for her apparently. Looks like her pals at Technet, or one of their board members, Goggle bigshot John Doerr, is apparently giving her a boost.... I suspect but have not proven yet that the Technet folks, or at least Mr. Doerr and his gazillions is somehow behind the Orphan Works Bill push, since the geeky big shots, their family members, and their employees are endorsing several politicians with some rather BIG lobbying bucks as long as they support another bill to basically remove the penalties on patent infringements. My personal assumption is since the bills are so similar in their intent to trash other people's rights to protection, then the perps almost have to be related. It's a simple system that works for me right now since I am too busy to do the needed digging to connect the dots ;)
Special Interest Lobbists claim they are not a part of the problem in DC... the hell they aren't. Personally I am sick of all the big money crap, people have been buying this country for years, and most people know it, (hell, even those with brain damage have seats on the clue bus on this one). PLEASE do NOT click on ANY Adsense ads you see on blogs and pass the word. Sorry to hurt the little guys trying to make money with these things, but a message needs to be sent that THIS is not okay.
For mother's day Ramie and Brian sent me this Genius Mousepen 
I have not played with it much yet, I just dabbled with it last night a bit ( and I liked what it did ) but I am taking it and my laptop to Vi's house this weekend for some extensive playtime since I am staying there Fri-Mon while her live-in goes camping.... so it gets a MAJOR test run this weekend. Looks like the reviewers on Amazon like it well enough, one even said for the money it was as good or better than their Wacom drawing pad. I can hardly wait to play with it.
After MUCH trial and error ( and some creative cursing) I was doing okay drawing with my wireless mouse until it died, but I have to say as much as I used it, the darn thing was killing off a ton of batteries. One thing for sure, this drawing pad is going to simply the process and give me much more control if last night's trial and error was any indicator. The learning curse is fairly short, and in my book $45 is a whole lot more justifiable if you are an artist on a budget than ripping almost $200 from the budget is if you have a use for a drawing pad.
There will be an update on how the weekend playtime goes on Tuesday.
I am off to inhale some coffee, and then I'll do a web surf and treasure find post before I start in on my day.
This is the most amazing idea:
The yard work is done, 4 more boxes are sorted, 3 packages are almost ready to ship, the laundry is done, the litter box is clean ( temporarily), the plants are watered, the van is cleaned out, and since Karina borrowed one of my bento boxes I cooked dinner and it is almost ready.... Pork Verde in flour tortillas, with rice and homemade refried beans.... Keegan said the aroma is making his mouth water, heh.
This dish was inspired by 3 porkchops found on sale for $1.95 that I browned, diced and tossed in the crockpot with 1/2 cup salsa verde, 1/4 c each dry white wine and herbed Italian salad dressing, 2 cloves of garlic minced, 1/2 onion chopped, 2 roma tomatoes diced, 2 stalks of celery chopped, 1/2 tsp pepper. When almost done, mix 1 tbl corn starch into a 1/4 water, and add in to thicken.
Keegan is right the house smells wonderful. Besides that, you cannot beat dinner for 3 for under $6.00 total
I woke ready to charge into the day, but first I had to charge up on some coffee, so I did email and surfed as I always do, entering a random word or phrase that was stuck in my head when I woke and searching for images. It's how things find me, and today was no different.
The random phrase "abstact sun" lead me to the art of a man called Rassouli. I had never heard of him before, but I am now a fan of his work. Judge for yourself:
The Spiritual Journey artwork of Rassouli
His work has a flow that draws you into it and moves your soul. I could easily see all of his art transformed into art quilts. My discovery of Rassouli lead me to my happy discovery of the music of Kitaro.....
I would call today a very productive surfing day....
I also decided that dieting is much easier of you eat out of a bento box, in fact bento boxes are my new dieting aid, They hold rational amounts of food, and you simply CANNOT over eat when using one. I have lost 7 pounds in 10 days without tracking anything or even really trying. I pack up 3 of the two layered ones and one single layered one in the evening for the next day. I do not surf the refrigerator, my meals and a snack box are ready to go when I wake up, it makes life easy.
My breakfast box has a cut up eggbeaters omelet, 2 sausage links ( reheated in about a minute), and either yogurt or oatmeal with fruit.
My lunch box has some kind of a salad, and 3 small salad shrimp or chicken rolls or diced meat & cheese plus diced fruit of some kind.
My dinner box has baked pork, beef, fish, chicken or a vegetarian main dish, a steamed veggie, and rice or a salad.
The single layer box is my snack box.... chunks of veggies, or fruit, or cheese balls ala Bisquick , a dip, maybe a few crackers.
I drink 2 glasses of unsweetened grapefruit juice a day, my usual pot of coffee ;), and lots of water. Non-fat milk with dinner or my snack and 1 Lite Arnold Palmer in the evening while i watch TV or sew. I get plenty to eat, the box keeps me on track, my only rule is, if it's not in the box I don't eat it. You simply cannot fit a half a pizza in these boxes, or a side of beef, or a poor boy, or a big mac..... and if you make a deal with yourself you are only eating from the boxes, things like chips take too much room to qualify for inclusion. I am not craving anything nor do I feel like I am sacrificing.
Saturdays are my cheat day...and I add a dessert or blueberry muffin to the menu. I am also going to eat dinner out on saturdays when I have the money.
Anyway, as they started to show the first house, I thought, gee, that house looks familiar..... and it should, it was my grandson Keegan's paternal great grandmother's house! Holy cow.... I knew she had it on the market, but no one told me it was going to be on HGTV. If you catch the show, as they scan the living room you can see Keegan's picture on the end table.
Hidden Potential Episode HHDPO-408 Looking for a Green House
In Portland, a young family wants to create an eco-friendly house that uses efficient solar power. (actually they wanted a house they could convert to bio-diesel heating).
It airs again at these times:
• May 20, 2008 1:00 AM ET/PT
• June 27, 2008 8:30 PM ET/PT
• June 28, 2008 12:30 AM ET/PT
I have to say they could not have made it look worse... it is a wonderful house, classic 70's styling, well cared for, on a HUGE private lot, a gazebo and workshop, RV parking and space for 3-4 cars, an easy 5 minute walk from the river. Considering the cost of houses in Portland I am really amazed it has not sold already at $294,000.
The "kids" being shown 3 house options picked a house not much bigger than the one they already had, the doofs.
I spent the weekend at my friend Sherry's house in Salem, I needed some mental quiet, to learn how to do my shots, and I needed to sleep. I got all of these things the last 2 days, it was wonderful. We ate Hummus, homemade pita bread, tabouli, drank iced tea and lemonade and had fresh strawberries over homemade ice cream, and no one demanded anything of me. It was heaven. I even played with my wire quilt design a bit, but not much. I did dream of another way to use it besides wire... more on that later.
Then I came home to the clean up of a butternut
squash that had fallen from a bag of groceries on Thursday and that had
sat in the 90+ weather, rotting in the back of my van (ewwwwww). I also
came home to Karina, whose first words were to scold me for accepting a
huge covered wicker basket Sherry had given me to store stuff in.
"Do
you really need more crap?" Well, it's not crap, it's like new, it
holds a ton of fabric and it is going to be used in the storage locker
so you will not have to even look at it after today, so what is the
problem exactly?
Barack Obama was greeted by 75,000 cheering voters in downtown Portland on Sunday, I was not home or I would have made it 75,001. I would post the youtube video but it is lagging pretty badly so if you want to see it search youtube for "obama portland Oregon May 18th". The crowd was impressive, maybe my fears about Oregon voters were unfounded after all, of course southern Oregonians are the unpredictable wild card in our election.
I have much to do between now and Thursday so I may not be posting much, but I feel 100% better than I did on Friday and for the first time in weeks I feel up to getting things done. I am not crediting the B12 shot, that is gonna take more than one to get me back on track, so I suspect it is more likely the rest and relaxation than revived me. I do have a date with the post office on Thursday morning..... the collage mania collages and one other package are taking flight this week....better late than never I guess, I'm sorry to those who have been waiting, I just could not get them off before now, "getting dressed" has been my main activity the last 2 weeks. I have to tell you this level of fatigue I have been experiencing sucks in ways no one can imagine who has not been through it.
Of my concept for a wire quilt for my front window.... I couldn't wait till the weekend to work on it.
I picked up my B12 shots today, and my cholesterol medication. The needle is impressive. I get my first lesson in sticking myself with it tomorrow. I hope all of you are doing something more fun than this over the weekend.
Portland hit 90+ today, out by us it hit 95 outside, the house is still like at oven at 2am.... major heavy sigh......
I am struggling to stay on track at this point so this may turn out funnier than I intend for it to be. Thank gawd for spell check catching my typos and underlining them!
First off, if you hear of an explosion in Oregon, it will be at my house. It got hot today, so I made some spicy beans in the crockpot to avoid turning the oven on. I used chicken broth , garlic and onion, and a can of salsa verde, plus a teaspoon of Tandoori blend spices. VERY tasty. Then I made Chicken, lettuce, tomato and cheese wraps to go with them. Keegan ate 3 bowls of beans.... ( he never eats beans) did I mention it was hot today? Well, I hope we cool off before he starts tooting...or... there REALLY could be a big kaboom! He says it is brewing whatever that means. Why is it little boys love their bodily functions, in fact come to think of it many males seem to never outgrow this fascination...
I found the coolest thing online today, a wire quilt. I cannot afford it at $6000, but it would be fun to make one out of recycled wire and then hang it in my front window. Look isn't it cool? A quilt you can see through!
Who wants to help me design some simple designs on paper says 5" square, easy to do in wire.... that way I could say "my friend so-n-so designed that block"....contributors can use the block designs I develop too if they want to make one. I am gonna play with this over the weekend a bit and see what designs I can come up with. Of course I will have to encase mine in plexiglass so the cats do not rearrange it.... in fact I bet the crime sisters ( Coco and Booger) could disassemble this in under an hour and hide all the evidence without even breaking a sweat.
I am going to Salem to stay with my ICU nurse pal Sherry Saturday and Sunday so she can teach me the fine art of self injecting B12 into my muscles without freaking out.
