Alphageek Art Studios

Alphageek
Originally uploaded by AlphaHokie

The Alphageeks recently moved into a new house. One of the advantages of the new house is that there is now an art studio in the basement. Well, art studio might be pushing it. After all, it is really a space where I am allowed to spill paint without getting in trouble.

Shown here is my second attempt at the same painting as before. Some things went better than others, but overall I think it is better. I had some trouble with the happy trees, but the bushes were much improved. You can click on the picture itself to see my comments on the picture. If you have a flickr account, you can even add your own comments!

This time, I tried something new. Two other artists joined me in interpreting this picture. While I was interested in copying Bob Ross's vision of this picture, they each added their own interpretation to the painting. It was incredibly fun to have several guest artists join me. They were very patient, even when we only had one knife and had to wait on each other to paint.

You can click here to see Hannah's picture.

You can click here to see Emma's picture.

I am quite pleased with the results because in all three cases, you can tell what we are painting. I will take that as success given that the only art training I have is from watching some tv shows and reading a piece of paper that came with the kit. Emma and Hannah also showed me another way to paint trees, proving that these kind of paintings are pretty hard to mess up.

Try your own painting today. Just go buy the kit. Stay tuned for more pictures because a new book arrived in the mail the other day.

Make Your Own Hot Dog Buns

During this incredibly difficult storm, I have decided to enjoy a bourbon and entertain you with some new ideas. I will do my best to entertain you with original content on today's Internet. You can thank me later. Today's idea is based on necessity but is very clever and I am busy here congratulating myself for thinking of it.

I stopped by the store on the way home during this awful storm. So the roads were very wet, but very scary during the day. I arrived at the store and discovered that I could buy just about everything I needed for the day with one glaring exception: hot dog buns.

I really was set on having some hot dogs this weekend. After all, I was going to even make my own chili. That is when I discovered that the hot dog buns were cleaned out of the store. I also noticed that there was almost no instant soup, and that everyone in the store was either at the check out line or at the seafood counter. I decided to think the problem through. Seeing nothing that helped, I wandered over to the bakery aisle, hoping they might have bakery buns. That did not pan out. However, I found that there were some sub rolls. I decided "close enough" and headed to the checkout.

I got home, and decided that these sub rolls seemed to be about four times the size of a hot dog bun. I decided that I could cut the sub roll in half, perpendicular to the long axis of the hot dog. I then took each half and cut it in half with parallel to the long axis. Finally, I cut a slit lengthwise into each half that was left. I now have four hot dog buns!

I know this is a little confusing, so I took some pictures to show exactly what I did.

Go enjoy your hot dogs!

Another thing...

These are a couple more random thoughts, after a relaxing bourbon. They are a ps to the previous post, so you should go read it first, or this post will probably not make very much sense.

Moving can be a great way to find out some new things. For instance, who knew that washers and dryers were so much bigger these days? The laundry that used to take four or five loads is now done in three. Of course, this assumes that you just don't make even more dirty laundry before doing the wash. I guess you could always buy more underwear, but that trick doesn't work very well anymore. Now, I just run out of shirts or socks too.

Every house has its quirky little things. You move and hope that you won't have any of quirks in the new place. Sort of like a first date when you think everything is going to be great. Then, reality sets in. I have noticed a few quirks so far. The basement has a small room to walk through before going to the large room. There is a light switch only near the stairs for this small room, away from the large room. You have to decide if you want that light on or off when you get to the end of the stairs. I am a little concerned about what is going to happen when the basement is dark and you want the light in the small room off. I see a flashlight in the future. Hey, maybe I will buy "the clapper", and I don't mean a disease either.

The toilets are weird too. You better hold that handle down for a few extra seconds when flushing "solid material".

Who puts an uninsulated garage door in a house, when the garage is next to living space? I guess the people who built our house.

Just a few of life's mysteries that will never be solved.