archives
Just a note to those who might stop by here as I reorganize my world, I have closed the doors as DOGBRAINSTUDIOS and reopened them as...
Brickart Studios
You can see a complete new Portfolio at www.brickartstudios.comLabels: A whole new start
posted by Martin 4:31 PM
You guys still here?
I haven't checked my Web Traffic for a longtime and damned if there aren't still people coming to the Team Elf site to see what ramblings are afoot.
I am touched, I really am. I am also a bit confused but hey that is my normal state of affairs.
Well I best be honest and say that things have not been the best for Der Elf these past months. I don't really want to go into it as much as I used to but suffice to say if "That which does not kill me makes me stronger" then I should be able to lift Hummers with...well I won't finish that thought.
The big thing I guess is I was forced to sell my beloved M-2 to buy a street car so I could get to work. In the course of a month I had both my tow vehicle and my old reliable Subaru blow their engines up and I had neither time, money not inclination to fix them. Truth be told I had to be at work the next day and I only had one remaining source of capital. I think that when the car actually left though it hit my son Nicholas more than it it hit me. That car had been a part of his entire life and big as he is I think he almost broke down.
Since I don't believe that just because you put yer ass in a race car at one time you have the right to have a say in the everyday doings of the class for the rest of your life I had one last piece of business to take care of. I deleted my account on the Left Coast Formula Car board and handed over administration of it to Bruce Fuchiwaki. I lurk there now from time to time but as any recently retired racer knows it hurts too much to be around it.
I still have all the resources of Mysterian Racecars, though I am not administering them as well as I should. I also have an amazing surface table, compliments of Mr. Jim Petrick. There is tubing laid out on that table right now but I have no time to work on a new car and no way of funding it if I could. I do have all the parts, sans engine, to build a Formula First car and eventually I would like to do that. Mostly for Nick to Race. That may be a ways off though.
Odd as it may seem, considering my track record here, my personal life is going to remain personal. I have laid too much of myself out on the web too many times, and paid the price for it. Suffice to say I am adapting to being alone just now, with the odd visit from my son and to visit friends elsewhere.
I had a bicycle team from back east ask me to turn this URL over to them as they are a charitable organization. I told them no, that I support their work and wil give them a link on the site but Team Elf is an artifact of my Family. It has been since 1962 and when I pass it will remain in the hands of my son. Eventually when I get back into a welding mode I will post images of that project. For now I think I will rebuild the site to support FV and FFirst, like it originally was, and use this BLOG once again for my musings on the shape of the world (BTW, it's shapoed like an EGG).
Drop me a note, you all know the address, and I wil turn comments back on so you can participate. Hel maybe I will start another web board, I dunno.
...but thanks for visiting me.
posted by Martin 3:57 PM
PSSST! I am writing in that other BLOG!
posted by Martin 8:42 AM
I WANT A NEW BLOG
Well it has seemed for quite awhile to me that my musing here have strayed so far from Racing that I needed a new venue in which to post them. To that end I have a new Personal BLOG, one I write in more often. If you have any interest in such drivel you can go to
www.therevolutionwillbeanimated.com
ANd check it out. I am working in animation again so there will be links to stuff I have posted on YOUTUBE, sites that I just find cool and stuff that is NOT related to Racing but which I am also hesitant to post on my Portfolio site. This site will be converted back to a racing site in the near future as I have new undertakings in that area as well!
See ya in the funny papers.
posted by Martin 8:08 AM
SO there I went promiosing to write more and POOF I am gone like a New Year's resolution in the face of Bucket of KFC!
Truth is I have been hammered by the latest project from Mattel. The decided to give me more responsibility, which I took on because they also promised more money.
...and promised...
...AND PROMISED...
...AND FREAKING PROMISED!!!
In the end they finally relented when I sent guido "the dangling participle" to speak with them...along with a heavy blunt thing. I think the latter was his wit but I am not sure. I did go SIX WEEKS without pay, whilst working 10 hour days 5-6 days a week. I also got to train animators in Russian from my studio (through a translator no less...who seems to have gotten some of it wrong), worked feverishly to try and correct the work of 20 or more other animator (who seem to think that reading directions is FOR BABIES!).
Eventually though I got paid and because of the other animtors incompetance I lost some work from another studio but gained a couple months living expenses fixing things. That project is winding down and I have another, larger, one in the offing from another former client. Along with that I also got a call to airbrush an enire Dualie Tow vehicle.
Man...being sober is alot of work!
posted by Martin 11:22 AM
JAVA JIVE
" I like Coffee...
I like Tea!
I like the Java Jive and it likes me!"
So I got this buddy, been my best friend pretty much since we were in 6th grade together, back when dinosaurs roamed Venice beach looking to pick up bivalves. We have stayed best friends by maintaining a couple of rules:
1) Respecting each other for who he is and not trying to change him
2) Supporting each other even if that involves holding hair while vomiting
3) Maintaining a level of confidentiality that would make the Kennnedy conspiritors envious
4) Living as FAR THE HELL AWAY FROM EACH OTHER AS POSSIBLE!
This last point's elegance will not be wasted on those who have attempted long term friendships or marriages. Separation is key, it maintain a level of detachment that is essential. We started out living close together but he moved to Kuai ans I moved to Santa Monic, then he moved to Seattle and I moved to North bay.
When he was in Seattle, Olympia actually, I started to go visit him on occasion. I was living in Sacramento when I started this ritual, something he and I called "the Drive". You get in your car with tapes, food and a gas card and drive like a fool until you get where you wanted to be...usually about 9 hours.
During one trip, on the way back from FOOD (a fine diner on the highway headed for the Olympics) we stopped to pick me up a towel before a cruise on Steve's venerable TROJAN cabin cruiser. Outside the "Cheap Towel and Car Parts" place there was a shivering guy with a little cart. At this point I will stop while you load ominous music as this poor freezing bastard was the harbinger of things to come for all of us. This was the first ESPRESSO CART I had ever seen. Steve told me that these things had been popping up around town like Zombies after a spring rain. We scoffed at the concept of $3 for a cup of coffee and enjoyed a day of the waters of Puget Sound.
Next trip up Steve and I went to the ULTIMATE geek playground, the BOEING SURPLUS YARD. As I strolled through the gates, my brain all aswim with thoughts of cheap Cleco Fasteners and Surplus AirCal passenger seats I notice not one but THREE of those Karts, now brightly coloured and "manned" by attractive young women with winning smiles and Ligere that qualified as architecture. Understand that the scrapyard is located in the FINEST subdevelopments made of refridgerator crates in the industrial district of Seattle. This time I actually bought something from the pneumatic barrissta...the drug had entered my system and all was lost.
So here I sit in STARBUCKS, pounding this out while my Venti-Triple-Non-Fat-Latte cools. The ciurcle of Caffine is complete.
posted by Martin 5:27 PM
Sometimes the bug gets YOU
Many apologies for the lack of posts past two days but I wasn't of much use. "The Bug" I mentionbed earlier got all of it's claws into me and would NO let go! Started in the throat, when to the nose and chest where is set up house keeping, took out a morgate on a nice little lung of it's own and set about doing the Viral Equivalent of the "9 to 5 thing". It communted to my colin on occasion, just to check out the branch office, before grabbing a Latte in my spleen and heading back to the main office in my sinuses.
I was forced to resort to Chemical WMDs, in the form of Dayquil and robitussin (doing a full bottle of the latter in a day) but the bastard heard the early warning system and took cover under my tongue until the all clear sounded. In the end I did the only truly EFFECTIVE thing to deal with a Virus...I ignored it, didn't invite it to parties and blocked its entry to the country club. It is still there but I have shattered it's ego and self-respect so much that it has started dating e-coli in my gut and that never leads to anything good. I know it was heartless of me but wadda ya gonna do?
Back tomorrow with more blather.
posted by Martin 6:32 PM