Author: DOuG pRATt

It Was Time

Four years ago today, after 36 years with the same company, and 40 years since graduating from college, I became unemployed by choice. The founder of the company once told me that I had a job for as long as I wanted it. When I told my boss why I was quitting, to assume Durable Power of Attorney for my father, he offered me a 3-month leave-of-absence. For a variety of reasons, both practical and personal, I no longer wanted the job.

After my father’s stroke, for several months I commuted between Boston and Phoenix every other week, with no end in sight. I knew that being free from my job for the following three months wouldn’t be enough, and that definitely proved to be true. Disregarding every other consideration, I had always liked the idea of retiring 40 years after graduating from college. When I told my father that his stroke made it easy for me to act upon that idea, he laughed and said, “Glad to have helped!” That was one of the few lighthearted moments we were able to share in those difficult ten months between the stroke and Dad’s passing.

Dying with your boots on should be by choice, and not by necessity. Thanks to the way the founder set up the retirement plan, I had the money to quit.

Spellblind

I watched this free movie, that’s also commercial-free, in 10-minute chunks over the past couple of weeks. Note that the video can’t be embedded here, so you’ll have to follow the link. I suspect YouTube will eventually end embedding, just as monetizing is becoming standard, even for submissions from users who haven’t signed up for the program.

Mirage, with its overly contrived plot and a small sci-fi twist at the end, is a failed Hitchcock wannabe, but it’s an interesting curiosity. For Gregory Peck the role is a return to Hitchcock’s Spellbound, from 20 years earlier, with him again trying to remember a traumatic event. The movie’s hook for me is the gorgeous “brunette Grace Kelly,” Diane Baker, who was seven years old when Peck was in Spellbound. A year before Mirage, Baker appeared in Hitchcock’s Marnie.

The hard contrast of the photography, along with some cheap looking sets, give Mirage the appearance of a widescreen 60’s TV production. The New York locations are interesting, and Walter Matthau does his usual Walter Matthau thing. George Kennedy and Jack Weston are both menacing and goofy. Fun fact: I’m the same age as the little girl who plays Irene in the middle of the movie.

Leaded Fuel

It’s confounding that the frustration I feel when getting warmed up for drawing now, is exactly the same as I remember having as far back as age 4, and definitely at age 8. Once I’m going, picking up a pencil and just doodling around, it takes just a minute to whip up a sketch like this one.

But from there, revving up the engine in my brain enough to work up a composition, and getting the gears connected to the ol’ drawing arm (the left one) to render it reasonably cleanly, requires some effort. Then some help from my trusty light box.

I’m contemplating the purchase of a Wacom Intuos Pro Paper Edition. My son no longer has use for a Dell all-in-one I gave him a few years ago. I originally purchased it for my father in Arizona, in an attempt to see if he could manage the touch screen after his stroke. That didn’t work out, so I had it shipped home. The factory-calibrated 24″ FHD screen on this thing is outstanding, and it would be ideal for digital drawing. Once I have the system set up on the drawing table, no longer tilted, I’ll decide on getting a tablet… or not.

Follow-up: Leaning towards the Wacom Intuos Medium. It’s half the price of the Pro — $200 vs. $400 — and it comes with a 2-year license for software that’s useful for cartooning.

A Dusty Record

Do records sound “better?” Here is a comparison that is completely invalid in every technical sense, but is nevertheless worth hearing.

First, the official copy on YouTube.

Now from vinyl, that may have been, for all I know, mastered from a digital source.

On my Logitech Z-3 computer speakers I’m hearing the same difference I’ve always heard between CD and LP.