if i were a (banana) hammer

apparently one of the benefits of a -20F environment is that you can use your banana to build something (hopefully, something that will take you to a warmer place, yo).

http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/26/banana-hammer-cold/ (skip the video clip -- their comic timing is waaaay off and from the volume of pointless chatter, i'm assuming they had air-time to burn. i mean, show us the banana hammer already.)

that's pretty damn cold. right now, right here, it is an unnatural 64 degrees. which is why i'm here and not building an escape pod with a banana.

kay yow kicked ass. a lot.

if there was one person i thought could kick cancer's ass from here to thursday, it was nc state women's basketball coach kay yow. and she did, *three* times, starting in 1987, the same year i started as a student at nc state. through her 38-year coaching career and her decades-long battle with breast cancer, she became an icon of strength and courage for women across the country.

among the many times she kicked ass:

• 1975 - nc state university hires yow as associate athletic director of all the university's women's sports and as coach of the one-season-old women's basketball team, as well as the softball and volleyball teams. she remains the coach of the women's basketball team for the rest of her life.



• 1981 - helps to found the women's basketball coaching association (wbca).



• 1986 - leads the u.s. women's basketball team to their first victory over the soviet union at the goodwill games, and to a gold medal at the 1986 world basketball championship.



• 1988 - recovers from bout one with breast cancer to coach the u.s. women's basketball team to olympic gold in seoul. she is the first women's coach to win both the world championship and the olympics.



• 1998 - coaches the nc state women's basketball team to the ncaa elite eight® and final four®. over the course of her 38-year career, her teams won four atlantic coast conference tournament championships and earned 20 ncaa tournament bids.



• 2000 - is inducted into the women's basketball hall of fame.



• 2002 - is one of the first five women to be inducted into the national basketball hall of fame.



• 2002 - launches jimmy v classic women's tournament in 2002 to raise money for breast cancer research.



• 2004 - battles the cancer a second time.



• 2006 – launches "hoops for hope" game to raise money for breast cancer research.



• 2006 – coaches her 1000th college game and becomes the first acc women's coach to record 650 victories. by the end of her career in 2009, she is one of only six women's basketball coaches to top 700 collegiate victories.



• 2006 - battles the cancer a third time.



• 2007 - establishes the kay yow/wbca cancer fund.



• 2008 - continues to coach and support her players in spite of a fourth occurrence of breast cancer.

in one of her hall of fame induction speeches, she said, "my career has been made possible by many people who have dug wells from which I have drunk and by many who have built fires by which I have been warmed." even as she humbly gave props to others, she gave as much to those wells and fires as she got. with her passing today, she leaves an amazing legacy of courage, dignity, empowerment, and perseverance.

new stuff for a new year

have added new designs and new merch to my cafepress store: http://www.cafepress.com/amosfly.

also, i have begun to add my holga (a 120 format camera by lomography) portfolio to flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amosfly/sets/72157612868350625/.

if i'm not careful, i might actually make a go of this artist thing. heh.

coincidence?

maybe it's because i still have feelings for the good old days of "the x-files", but i swear that the casting of history channel's "ufo hunters" is inspired by the beloved investigative trio, the lone gunmen. seriously. compare:





see? tell me you don't see it. there's a byers (brilliant, mild-mannered, mustache dude), langley (brilliant, hacker/gamer-type dude -- sans glasses, trade long hair for face fuzz), and frohike (brilliant, crusty-but-heart-o-gold, older dude -- with dark glasses). it's kind of awesome.

home improvement is my bitch

i probably shouldn't say that until after the last nail is driven and so forth, but oh well. i'm feeling cheeky.

while i dropped off the face of the internets, i was hard at work on my "RL" habitat. it was time. in the nearly 10 years since i bought my slice of condo living, i was always to tired/depressed/overwhelmed/insert-pathetic-whatever-here to really attend to it or make it my own. i mean, although i had rearranged the furniture a couple times, things were pretty much the same (and, in some cases, in the same spot) as when i moved in. had painted (badly) the two bedrooms before moving in, had all the windows replaced a couple years ago, did some insulating, replaced the front door which had a crack you could see through, and disposed of the ugly-ass frankenshrubs which were dying slowly in my "garden" space. basically, all stuff one couldn't ignore. also, i had a rather lovely paycheck in those days, so i could afford to bring in professionals when necessary.

a year or so ago i paid a huge quantity of money to have the master bath renovated. i'll probably be paying it off until i die, but it was totally worth it to (a) have someone else manage the project and the subcontractors, (b) have the work done by people i knew i could trust, and (c) have a lovely bathroom.

but, as anyone who has been through the renovation mill knows, such projects totally disrupt any semblance of order you might have had (and i didn't have that much to start) -- all the stuff from the room you are renovating has to go somewhere else until the renovation is done, and you have to have some place to store the materials, fixtures, tools, and what-have-you for each stage of the project. needless to say, my already careless surroundings descended into chaos from which i've only recently rescued it.

freeing myself from my exhausting, grindingly depressing job was step one in my personal environment reclamation process. while this also meant freeing myself from the rather lovely income, *nothing* was worth the ongoing torture. the strange journey of personal reclamation continues it's winding, surprising path. so, six months or so down the road, i have recovered enough to actually care about my surroundings and be inspired to do something with them. (i know, crazy!)

people, i have power tools. and a work bench! seriously. in my previous couch potato life, i watched hundreds of hours of hgtv and "trading spaces". now, armed with my stanley book of home improvement, my very own tools, and a fire in the belly, i am actually doing this shit myself. i have been scraping, sanding, painting, filling, sawing, finishing, and restoring. i have replaced electrical outlets, and installed lights and a ceiling fan. i replaced my wind tunnel mail slot with a swell new one which lets the mail in but keeps the cold out.

i am totally blowing my own mind. don't get me wrong -- there are times when i think i'll snap if i have to sand one more lumpy wall or miter one more freakin molding piece. but overall, i am rockin the home improvement. pictorial evidence to follow...

finally!

the mercury rev poster contest winner has been announced! it wasn't me, but it's a lovely picture: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=89336992&blogID=431569444

slightly bummed, but mostly so glad the wait is over. it was killing me!

what i've been up to recently...

(not necessarily in this order)

1) went to the beach with friends for a week: http://picasaweb.google.com/cynicalmeg/BeachTrip2008

2) created two more posters for the mercury rev contest (which *still* has not announced a winner. i think it was a lie. there *is* no contest):

poster 2

poster 3

3) submitted work for the "50 Photographers" exhibit which opened sept. 5 at the local crocker's mark gallery. my entry: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amosfly/2841697228/. you can see the virtual gallery here.

4) submitted work for two separate SPARKcon events - artSPARK image slam and the open gallery hanging.

whew! i'm tired just recounting all that stuff. :-)