Kurt Vonnegut

A friend who knows I love Vonnegut reminded me of a quote from him the other day.

"We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap."

I miss Kurt. He is someone I would have liked to have met.

Green Lawn

In addition to driving the original 2000 Honda Insight hybrid, which gets the best gas mileage of any car (sorry wonderful Prius), I also use an Earthwise electric lawn mower. This has been a great lawnmower, but I keep procrastinating on sharpening the blade. I finally ordered a new blade tonight so I could remove the original and take my sweet time sharpening it. Never hurts to have a spare blade, I suppose...

Glow-in-the-dark monkeys

50 years to the day after we sent the first monkeys into space, we now have glow-in-the-dark monkeys.

Ah, progress.

Special thanks to Bill Gross for bringing this to my attention.

Insight MPG

A couple people asked me whether having the batteries replaced has made any difference. Not that I can tell. These are pretty typical numbers while driving on the interstate. The left number is the MPG for the number of miles traveled, which is the number on the right. I reset the trip odometer for the trip from Omaha to Austin.



These are all quick iPhone shots. This was near the peek. I thought I could get 66 - 70 MPG since I have in the past, but I think 65.5 was the overall best after about 548 miles of driving. Granted, anything approaching 70 MPG is rare. 65 is typical.



After 600 miles of driving, I was back down to 65 MPG.



I started speeding more and it dropped to 62.5 MPG by the time I had driven the 920 miles to Tim's place in Austin. I must have unconsciously slowed down for safety each time I took a pic, because the first half of the trip I averaged 70 mph and I averaged about 75-80 mph the last half of the trip. Still, not bad.

Honda Insight Battery

At 121,000 miles, the IMA light came on in my 2000 Honda Insight, indicating there might be a problem with the battery. The warranty expired at 75,000 miles, so I was nervous. Before I even made it to the Honda dealer, however, I discovered Honda had extended the warranty to 150,000 miles or 10 years. With fingers crossed, I visited the dealer to have them run a computer check on the IMA signal. The result was the battery needed to be replaced (for the second time, btw) but I would pay zero dollars. Nice

I thought I would share images of the battery being swapped out.


The battery sits in the hatchback area just behind the seats.


Before you get to the battery, you encounter the casing...


...and this sign. I asked the mechanic why there wasn't a third option: "but if you know what you are doing, you should be fine." Only two options seemed overly forbidding and grim, to me.


To make things simple, all you had to do was toss this baby (which looked just like a light switch) similar to a breaker in your basement and voilà, you were ready to go.


With the case removed.


The battery was shipped overnight from a place in California...


...in this case...


...behold in all its geeky magnificence.


...and all its wires.


Although most of the wires were for the computer system.


and these were the only spots for the positive and negative terminals.


if you look closely, you can see that it is really an array of many separate D-Cell-like batteries all lined up. Pretty cool.

I drove it home the same day. Honda seems to want these 2000 Insights to last, because I am supposed to take it back in a week for an updated computer and a new adapter on the battery (all free).

So far it seems to be driving just fine, thank you.

Wallaby in New Zealand??

As I was taking pics of this terraced area, I also saw a wallaby.



I thought there weren’t any wallabies in New Zealand, but I have proof. In fact, I have video proof, as well. Knowing the history of how the non-native species have decimated the native species like the kiwi (and 58 other species of birds now extinct), it was a little shocking to see this wallaby.

He moved fast and I just barely captured these images before it went back into the bush.

Clear-cut

I had just been telling Julian (the French hitchhiker) about clear-cutting practices in the United States. I told him about a lumber company which had put up a public relations billboard years ago that informed the public how the company replanted trees after they dramatically clear cut huge areas of the forest, thereby “replenishing” the forest. Supposedly it made everyone feel better.

Unfortunately for the company, the billboard showed a very UN-natural young forrest with perfectly aligned trees. This only succeeded in emphasizing how they were altering the natural landscape. Granted, it wasn’t a huge public relations nightmare, but humorous and ironic, nevertheless. Ah, PR gone bad.





Only a few hours later, I ran across the exact same thing on the south island. The first image shows areas that have been clear cut. To the right of that image is a replanted area. The second image is a detail of that exact same spot. The last image is another part of the forest a few miles further ahead.

It seems to me it would be far less work to plant trees more randomly, or at least stagger them a bit, than it is to perfectly align the trees like a crop of corn.

Oh, well.

Lux Center installation - video

This is just a simple, short video to show how the projection looked during the reception.

Climate Crisis Coalition, pt 2

The great people at the Lux took images of the piece as it was being set up and as it melted. Here are seven shots















Sadly, the face didn't really melt as expected. The dirt stayed right where it was, pretty much unchanged. I might experiment and try a new version of the portrait, just for fun...

Art Week, part 4

The Lux Center for the Arts hosted my contribution to the Climate Crisis Coalition's "Global Day of Climate Action." Although only some of the events have been listed for the USA, you can map a handful of the US events here. This is the only event in Nebraska that I know of.

This is an update to the installation I did for the CCC last year as the Kyoto Protocol was set to expire. On December 6th (the 2008 Global Day of Climate Action), writers, artists, musicians, performers and activists will be holding events all over the world. The CCC has stated there will be hundreds of thousands of people in 92 other countries around the world participating in the global event.

Of course, the US was one of the few countries that did not sign on to the Kyoto Protocol because Bush refused to do so.

The quote is created with letters cast from red ice and placed on a bed of ice. The quote will melt over the span of a few days. In case it is too hard to read online, here is the text:

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air, ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow, ice and rising global sea levels.

2007 Climate Change Report / Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Since Bush is soon leaving office, however, and since he refused to sign the protocol, I decided to add him to the piece with a portrait created with ice and soil. Now a lame duck, this portrait will fade away as his presidency does. As he melts, his portrait will turn to mud.



It is really hard to draw with cups of soil and handfuls of ice. The portrait looks more like Kucinich that Bush, but oh, well.

I shot some video and I will try and post some of that soon. The video projection shows a rectangle of flames blazing over the ice. It looked better after the sun set. These images were taken while there was still some light out.

Special thanks to Stephanie Leach at the Lux Center for inviting me and helping cast the letters, and to Maranda Allbritten, Conner McKissack and Allie Feezell who helped me arrange the quote.

Also thanks to Ezra Small at the Climate Crisis Coalition.

44 days

Climate Crisis Coalition

Remember this image from last year?:

That piece was for a global event organized by Climate Crisis Coalition. Artists, performers, writers and activists from all over the globe participated in the one day event.

I took the quote from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report, then cast a small portion of the quote with red ice and placed it in the show. It melted over the next few days. Last Spring, I brought the piece back along with the outstanding Jamie Burmeister, who helped me set up the event for Earth Day, 2008.

This year, I promised the Climate Crisis Coalition that I would bring the piece back, with a new twist, for the next CCC global event which officially takes place on Dec 6.

I will post more information as the time approaches, but the actual event will begin the evening of Dec 5th and be left to melt over the full day of Dec 6th.

Insight issues

A handful of people have asked me what the Insight looks like without the wheel covers. Well...


Driving down the highway, the panel over the right rear tire came loose. This doesn't look all that bad, but it was actually bent all the way around and upside down when it happened. I straightened it before I thought to take a pic.

A few weeks ago, a new rear bumper was put on. There were bolts missing that held the panel on. Coincidence?


All I had with me was a Swiss Army Knife, but it was barely enough to remove the panel and drive to the nearest town where there was a Lowe's. I picked up some various bolts and washers that would fit.


All sparkly, again.

Honda Insight

The good news is that Honda is bringing back their best hybrid as the new redesigned Insight which looks eerily like Toyota's Prius (which, btw, my parents drive - two hybrids in the family. Wheeee!). The odd news is that the rumors put the MPG at less than the Insight I already own. It is rumored to be better than the Prius, but not by much. I was hoping if they brought it back that it would be a 100 MPG car. I don't get why they didn't shoot for the moon on this one.

Oh, well. I guess I will drive my Insight for a few more years. As long as I can still get 65-70 MPG on the highway, at least...

Nagaski

Take a moment to reflect: On this date 63 years ago, an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, immediately killing 70,000 people including many more over the following years.

A Peaceful Reminder

Sixty three years ago, on August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped a 15 kt nuclear device, nicknamed “Little Boy,” onto the unsuspecting city of Hiroshima (view the 360 degree panorama of the aftermath). Just a few days later, a 21 kt device nicknamed “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki.

Robert Oppeheimer, the “Father of the Nuclear Bomb,” hoped that dropping the bomb on Hiroshima could be avoided, and along with other scientists, argued unsuccessfully for a demonstration of the new bomb with leaders of Japan before any wartime use of such a weapon. However, he admitted it might have needed to be done in order to stop the WWII.

However, for the next several decades after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even to the day of his death, Oppenheimer questioned what made Nagasaki necessary and publicly wondered why we hadn’t tried more diplomacy before dropping the second device.

When I designed a scale on the floor for "Nuclear Dichotomies" (a show at the Bemis Underground a couple of years back that I roped my brother into), I created a simple conversion to illustrate the differences between the sizes of atomic devices like “Little Boy” and the Hydrogen Bombs that would be tested about a decade later.

For the conversion scale I simply took one kiloton of explosive power and converted it to one foot. This does not calculate the size of the fireball, but rather, it is a simple game of numbers. So, the conversion scale became this:

1 kt = 1 ft

This positioned “Little Boy” about 15 feet from a wall that displayed a looping video of nuclear explosions. Every distance that would not fit in the gallery was plotted with the help of land surveryor, Larry Van Fleet (below), who I worked with at Ehrhart, Griffin & Associates years ago when I was learning surveying at Mark's company.

In addition to plotting the more than 1,000 devices exploded by the U.S., we also plotted Russia’s largest test, Tsar Bomba or “Big Ivan.” It exploded with an estimated 50 to 57 Megatons of power (depending on which estimate you want to go with) and an original design of 100 Mt. Converting the original design of the 100 Mt bomb and comparing it with the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, this was the difference in the scale:

Hiroshima = 15 feet
Ivan = 20 Miles

No, that is not a typo. 15 feet vs. 20 miles.

Visit Google Earth (you must download this file and Google Earth [free] in order to view it)

Don’t forget to take a moment to remember the souls lost on Aug 6th, 1945, and say your own prayer that bombs like Ivan will never be used.

Drill Drill Drill

[aka: a dugga dugga dugga]

From the Reno News and Review, July 10-16, ’08 (grabbed one before leaving Tahoe)

While some politicians and lobbyists are calling for increased oil drilling to relieve pains at the gas pump, the New York Times reports this: “A recent study by the federal government’s Energy Information Administration estimate that under the best-case scenario, opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would reduce prices by $1.44 a barrel by 2027.

That’s a barrel, not a gallon.

The article continues: “Drilling in broader swaths off the continental United States wouldn’t affect prices until 2030.”

---

What is it going to take for us to stop depending on relics and antiquated sources of power and finally start researching, innovating and using more alternative sources of power?

Beautiful Lake Tahoe

I took this photo at North Lake (near Incline Village)

I am up at the Lake right now. I probably won't post much this week because I will be busy being a "Visiting Artist" at SNC, as well as working on a web site for a friend, Tim Braun (when am I ever going to find time to redo MY website?  d'OH).  

Repost of "Earth Day"

Here is the Earth Day version of the IPCC quote with Jamie Burmeister joining the party. Note the wasteful gas powered generator and air cooling units to the right:



Watch timelapse animation (We started goofing off and tossing dry ice onto the cardboard)

Repost of " Jamie Burmeister Saves My Butt"

I am sitting in the Denver airport on my way to Orange County, CA to do a presentation of my experimental videos at the &NOW conference. The internet is free at this airport (whoo hoo).

Yeah, I get excited by stupid things.

The project for Earth Day was almost canceled due to my impossible schedule. In a panic, I started talking to other artists. Jamie Burmeister, a very cool and excellent artist in Omaha, showed interest in the project and has jumped on board. He is working on it while I am out of town. I got the new molds finished (the old mold that I created for the piece for the Climate Crisis Coalition formed letters that would be too small for warmer April weather). All that work left no time for casting.

Enter Jamie, the OEA Public Artist of the Year to save my butt. It is an honor to work with him and I am thrilled he wanted to work together. Simply put, this piece would not have happened without him.

I will post the results after this weekend... Until then, enjoy a snapshot of the winter version for the CCC: