Monthly Archives: Oct 2005

Complain

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Part two:
here is the place to complain:
http://www.walsall.gov.uk/transport/default.asp
I’ve pasted parts of my previous entry to that page- with a few changes in grammar.  Maybe if they reply- I will post the answer here at some time.
As for "Me", I’ve cleared out your double post so it looks ok now.
OIL:Changed some pictures around. The new (finished again) fractured eye painting is in the Completed Oils photo section. You may have to open the little picture below to see how it was modified

Walsall Council

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Walsall council are incompetent. It’s a well known feature in the Education department- they failed their Ofstead 2 years ago. But it now seems to be the case in the Transport department too. There is nothing anyone could have done about inadequate drainage in Shelfield, Walsall; it needs  majour engineering work on the storm drains.
but…
The road was starting to flood yesterday at 17.00, then it continued to rain heavily for another 7 hours.
So why with the road flooded knee deep, did they leave the road open. Cars had flooded their engines in the lake that formed to add further to the blockage. There were no "Road Closed" signs, no diversions, traffic was just allowed to get on with it. Someone from the coucil will have travelled that way home yesterday, therefore seeing the flood- so the coucil DID know the road would be impassable. But they decided to leave it open!
Why?

Broken Derailleur

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16°C, light Westerlies

Cycle home with one gear 61.6 miles, broken derailleur in pocket- why?…

Well, it just broke off going up a hill in Ashby De-La-Zouch. The bolt had sheared dropping it into the rear spokes.

At first I was really puzzled- (hmm what to do?  is there a phone box nearby, do I need a lift home…can I fix it or make it ridable?) . Thanks goes out to the woman who offered to let me use her phone on Moira hill. She directed me to a shop in the town where I could buy bike bits. after getting a chain tool, I shortened the chain, took out the rear mech and rode home with one gear in use- 42 x 19. That’s a very low gear…

Home is 21 miles away.

The gear ratio was very low, but with rapid spinning I could get it up to 21 mph. and hills were no problem.

Fixing this is going to take some time.

Notice the autumnal colours! I couldn’t help wondering while out- are we going to get a blaze of autumn colours like we did the year before last.

Dinosaur- here’s the photo!

Dankness

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17°, no weather, just air that is wet, but barely rains, it just makes the road wet where it rubs on the ground like a slightly damp dishcloth- a bit less smelly though..
Everybody seems to be ill.
 
 
 
Oh yes, and there’s a dinosaur eating a building behind my house.

bring the canvases home.

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17°C, clouds and sun & things.
Pictures at work: they went down well enough, I will leave the printouts of work-in-progress there in a  folder but I can’t wait to get the canvases home. Can’t carry them home on my bike tho’.
the cut eyes one was best liked. Even though there is something wrong with one eye that really must be fixed- as pointed aout by a colleague. He’s right as well ( drat!). So it’s not finished after all. I hate these patches of bare wall in here.
 
Short entry eh?
 

Cerulean blue

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No cycle to work, preserving that popped rib.ouch again 16°C. Greyness.
Epson– you are the most annoying printer I’ve ever given house room to. You cost £30 to fill with ink, then you print all streaky most of the time. Normally I run the nozzle-check & clean utilities four or more times. By the time you are ready to give we decent print, most of the ink has gone on test prints.
 
It’s now 21:20 hours, and I have run the self-clean utility 11  times, the result is still streaky.. Now the ink is level is down to 50%. It takes just over 5 minutes per page of A4 when it actually prints.
 
Never buy Epson.
All I want to do is show WiP photos to my Year 12s tomorrow, the canvases are in school waiting for the lesson. they have had one oil painting lesson with my colleague, this will be the followup.
I have cerolean blue oi colour. Gonna have fun with that!!. It’s traditionally a Cobalt II colour, but this is probably a modern synthetic, I own very few poisonous colours now.

Pedal thinking

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I don’t know what category to put this entry in
 
15°C, much variety of sky, no rain.

Cycling today, ( incidentally 73.4 miles) – my head was full of thoughts.

think one:

The "Sprite" painting has to change- (NB :not only have I changed it’s name…), but the image needs to change also. The head is faaaar to big and needs ot be angled diffrerently. If you get your pictures down from the shelf regularly, you get to "know" them. Then you visualise  them when out & about. I thught this over and over while cycling today. So changes are afoot in the underpainting. This MUST be done before overpainting oily layers .

 

3D :The other think was "Mentalray"

Mentalray is a renderer that was included in my copy of 3ds max 6. Been running max 6 for 18 months now, particle flow is great, as is reactor 2 and all the new mapping tools. Just overlooked the new renderer, but having read some enthusiastic chapters in 3ds Max6 Bibile.

Later: Tried mentalray- it’s very fast! Faster then Max’s scnline raytracer. The difficult bit is using shaders it seems.