SteamKeg Games for your iPhone – Steamkeg
Working on the SteamKeg Project has turned out to be fantastic. Learning a lot about Ruby On Rails, forcing HTML5 and CSS3 compliance and (NEW!) utilising Google’s Font API. What a great project.
- Company Name
- Logo Design
- Website Design – page layout, copy editing, graphics design
- Social Media Build-out – facebook & twitter
- App Marketing
Posted in Business, Graphic Design, iPhone, Marketing, Project Management, Web Design
Fluince: The story of Ollie and Jan…and Dowser
We were diving off the Johnson Atoll on the morning 13 January 1956 when, Jan, my navigator, and spotter, picked up something smallish on telemetry. We were scouting for wreckage from The Blast and Jan was sure we’d found something. The murk of the Pacific was exceptionally soupy that day. Even in the VAP suit my skin was itchy. Visibility was three feet at best but Dowser was sniffing our way down. You never know what’s in these waters. The murk is so thick it’s been said the sea has trapped the very souls of those warriors who’ve died in it. Too strong for even heaven. Or hell. My eyes strain against the black and my head starts to pound. Best to just keep my eyes closed and listen, let Dowser drive.
Just about anything going by will set Dowser off. A steady rhythm of “blit…blit…blit…blit…”, then a rush of “BLEE BLEE BLEE BLEE” and then back to the rhythm. “What was that?” Jan’s voice sputters inside the VAP helmet. “Ghosts.” It’s possible. Ghosts go by frequently but Dowser stays on course. We’re not looking for ghosts, we’re looking for stash and nothing can sniff out stash better than a Wreckage Dowser 928/10, Class II. One part kennel reject, two parts swedish engineering and about fifty million parts Czech gadgetry. We keep diving and the itch from the Blasted water is almost unbearable. Dowser’s getting excited and starts barking as we approach the stash. “Send down the basket?” Jan’s voice again. “Not yet. I want to see if there’s anything left down here.” I hate having to wait for the basket to come back up when it’s empty. Seems like a waste of time. I’d rather wait at the bottom, sorting through the stash.
The closer we get to the stash, the faster Dowser swims, like a horse bolting for the barn. It’s a small aircraft.
“Jan. Aircraft: Turboprop, Electra 10E. What’s that from?”
“What’s the wing tell you?”
“Can’t tell yet. It’s buried.”
“Well let’s clean it out. Sending down Zorin.”
Twenty minutes later Dowser announces the arrival of the Zorin. Unsecuring it from the tether cable I set it to work blowing out the black sooty debris from under the left wing. What a mess. The Blast soot is really bad for Dowser so I send him up the tether for a bit. I can hear him complaining through the VAP helmet speakers. “Stay,” I tell him. I think it’s all the behavior mods they require, makes a Dowser antsy. “Good boy.” Within the hour the Zorin has blown out a space big enough for the camera pod to clear the underside of the left wing.
“NR16020″ I call up to Jan.
“NR16020.” he repeats it. “NR16020. Shit. NR16020?”
“Yep.”
“Ollie, call your wife and tell her to put your piece of crap condo on the market. We just found Amelia Earhart’s Electra.”
report for Madison
Amelia Earhart was a famous female pilot. She was born on July 24th, 1897 in Atchinson, Kansas and went missing on July 2, 1937 somewhere over the Pacific Ocean in attempt to fly around the world. She was the oldest daughter of Samuel “Edwin” Earhart and Amelia “Amy” Earhart. Amelia had a younger sister and her name was Grace. The Earhart girls were always very adventurous. In 1904 Amelia and her uncle built a ramp going from the top of the tool shed to the ground. They used a wooden box for a car and Amelia rode it down the ramp and crashed at the bottom. This gave Amelia her first flying experience. When Amelia saw her first airplane at the Iowa State Fair when she was 10 years old, she was not yet interested in flying in one.
Amelia and her sister were home-schooled for their first few years. They started going to public school when they moved to Des Moines in 1909. The family moved to St. Paul Minnesota in 1915 when Amelia was a junior in high school. Later that year, they moved again, this time to Chicago. She graduated from Chicago’s Hyde Park High School in 1916 and then went to junior college in Rydal, Pennsylvania.
In 1917 Amelia went to visit her sister in Toronto, Canada and volunteered at Spadina Military Hospital. She worked hard taking care of soldiers coming home from World War I. With the Red Cross, Amelia became a nurse’s aide and also worked with the Volunteer Aid Detachment. Amelia got very sick when the Spanish flu broke out in 1918. It took her almost a year to recover from sinus problems and she spent her time reading and studying. During her recovery she went to an air show and saw a flying exhibition from a World War I flying Ace.
Amelia completed another year of college and then moved to California to be with her parents. One December day in 1920 she went to an airfield with her father and went for her first airplane ride. For $10 Amelia went on a ten minute ride with famous air racer Frank Hawks. It was this flight that convinced Amelia she wanted to be a pilot. Amelia did many jobs and worked very hard to save up money for flying lessons. Her first lesson was in January of 1921 and her teacher was a woman named Anita Snook. Later in the year Amelia bought her first plane. It was bright yellow so she nicknamed it The Canary. In October 1922 she flew as high as 14,000 feet, a record for female pilots, and on May 15, 1923 Amelia became the 16th licensed female pilot.
When her adventures took her to Boston, Amelia became very involved in the building of the Dennison Airport. She became very active in the pilot community in the Boston area and started an organization for female pilots. In 1927 she flew the first official flight out of the new Dennison Airport. Later that year she was invited to be in a project where she would be the first woman fly across the Atlantic Ocean. During the planning of this project she met her future husband, George Putnam, when he interviewed her for the project. George and Amelia were married in 1931 after he proposed six times. Amelia, a pilot named Wilmer Stultz and a co-pilot named Louis Gordon flew from Newfoundland to Wales on June 17, 1928. When they came back to America there was a parade and they were introduced to President Calvin Coolidge. Even though Amelia was not a pilot for this monuments trip, people all over the world were very excited for what she had accomplished. Like many female celebrities today, Amelia came out with her own clothing line and called it “A.E.” She also made a line of luggage called “Modernaire Earhart.”
When Amelia was 34 she made her very first trans-atlantic solo flight. Just like before, she flew out of Newfoundland but this time she landed in Northern Ireland. She received many awards for this flight including the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society. Amelia became the first pilot to fly from Hawaii to Oakland, California on January 11, 1935and by the end of the year Amelia set seven records for women’s speed and distance flying.
On July 2, 1937, Amelia and Fred Noonan flew out of New Guinea at midnight on their second attempt to fly around the world. They were headed for Howland Island when they reported in over the radio that their destination seemed wrong. The last radio transmission from Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan did not indicate any trouble with the flight but the plane never landed and Amelia and Fred were never heard from again. To this day no one knows what happened to them or where they ended up. People have spent many years and millions of dollars trying to find out what happened and maybe find some of the wrecked plane. Even today no one knows what happened. The Earhart family believes that Amelia and Fred were acting under direction from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is said that The President, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were working with the US Navy and came up with a plan that would make it easy for the American military to get close to Japan and see what the Japanese were up to. World War II was getting started and America wanted more information on what was going on in that part of the world. The Earhart family thinks that Amelia and Fred actually did land on Howland Island but they were captured by the Japanese and died as prisoners of war.
Posted in Writing
what next
10/04/10
and what do I do with you?
let my heart run amuck?
jump in with eyes closed?
is there even anything to jump in to
all on a memory of something that once was – was only briefly and was so long ago?
and for what?
i’m here.
you’re there.
neither to be moved.
but moved by hearts
and minds and sighs
moved to long and pine.
is it enough to love and be loved?
is this ache a profound emptiness
reaching its arms for you
pull me out of this darkness
or simply the echo of something i read about in a book?
perhaps it’s time passed.
having been so long since that was -
hazy memories
prompt me how sweet you are
how handsome you are
how full of love you are
and such a capacity!
i imagine man nor monkey can measure it
is it god’s own measure?
i want nothing as much
as your arms
your breath, your heart.
to hear and see joy
at work in your face
nothing so much as i want all that and still – i’m here
you’re there
and i know me.
capable of such cruelty
able to pull love from stone
Bolster of Hearts
a lifetime of sweet dreams for rent
in exchange for your attention and kind words
only to end up with a hatful of loathing
disinterest
bored
it’s been done before.
i know this tune
it’s the measure that throws me
and this time
my own caution: a swung beat
it starts with a canter
a marcato of courtship spotted with fortissimo
breathless
sotto voce
then i know you
remember the spots
or find new blemishes
the morendo as apathy sets in
the dust settles
and finds us where?
your family moved?
my life surrendered?
do you know how fickle i am?
do you know what it takes to keep me?
more designs than any man has had before you
or since you
as a feather in a windstorm
doomed to an unsettled heart
do i just need the right tune?
is there some piper
to charm me
to soothe the sway
to bring peace and calm?
perhaps something i’ve not yet heard
love so deep
it fills me completely
leaves no room for distraction
i know no man with a heart like yours
boundless
sacrificing
i only know how to take
can i be something more?
Posted in Writing
Roger
There’s a monster in my chest. I’m not talking about some sort of dark urges I need to fight, I mean an actual monster. They took x-rays and ran tests. It’s attached to my heart. It lives in the upper left ventricle, a parasite feeding off my blood and oxygen. It has a face and hands. Its tiny mouth slowly siphons my blood to feed its own existence. Its tiny hands, all four, work my heart to pump the blood faster through my body. The monster sucks the life from me, makes me tired, consumes my joy. The pain from its tiny hands is unbearable. Always pushing on my heart, making it go faster, making it work harder.
I know how it got there. Like a sexually transmitted parasite, you put it there that night we kissed outside the restaurant. The tiny monster cells traveled up from your heart, past your lips and in to me. Such a loving gesture with such sweet intent, and now this monster is sucking my happiness out.
I could have surgery to remove it, they said they could do it. I know if they remove it the damage to my heart would be considerable. It would never beat the same way again but I’d be free from the pain. Free from the tiny hands. Free from the hungry mouth. So I have two options: kill the monster or swallow the pain.
Posted in Writing
hollow shell
long dark hall.
walking quietly.
i know you’re here.
I feel you.
you run through me like blood.
cold floor.
stone walls.
hallway never ends.
run and run or walk so slow.
the hallway never ends.
a light under a door.
a glow like hope.
to reach you. to touch you.
the light so warm
inside your room
so safe. you’re locked up
I want that heat
i need to be near you
a hallway so long
so cold. so dark
i run till my heart bursts
my dream slips away
each step i take
the struggle to get closer
a battle with the darkness
from the doorway you beckon
be safe. be warm
you offer love like oxygen
to make me strong
to make me part of a whole
come, you say
come to me
run to me, i’m right here
right there at the end of the hallway
a hallway with no end
so cold. so dark
Posted in Writing
Don’t forget about me, love
I opened up my mind
Peace I could not find
Then something out of the blue
Said I needed you
Time swept me away
Merged me into pain
Then something out of the blue
Said you need me too
Oh what joy it bring to me
To know that heavens round
Oh what gladness in my heart
To know my loves been found
Chains totaled my climb
I was pushed out of time
Then something out of the blue
Said youd see me through
Something out of the blue
Said youd see me through
Now where hope was lost
Loves paid the cost
And something out of the blue
Said my love is you
Something out of the blue
Said I needed you
Something out of the blue
Posted in dreams
safekeeping
She laid there, calmly despite her nerves, while the men worked, cool earth beneath her, felt the wet grass on her arms. Her eyes slid up and caught the light through the yellow aspen leaves. The breeze played softly in the branches. She could hear the rustle of leaves on the ground around her. Rotting leaves and the smell of fall. She felt a tug at her back and a grunt escaped her lips. “Careful,” one of the men said. “I know,” replied the other, “keep an eye out, okay?” She heard a sparrow but couldn’t pick it out in the tree above her. Grey sky with clouds rolling by like lazy sighs. “Case.” Some shuffling in the leaves and she tried to look down to see what was happening. She caught a glimpse of bloody windbreakers and masks and she got dizzy. This was so surreal. “Open would be nice,” said the man with his hands inside her chest. “Perhaps you should have been more specific,” the other replied with obvious impatience. She looked down again and saw it. The man had it in her hands. Her heart. Drippy and red like a movie prop in the movies, not really doing anything but being a lump of mess. “You said it’d be safe?” she managed to throw together a sentence. “Yeah, yeah. Very safe. We’ll keep it safe from everyone.” In to the case it went, making an unexpected crunch. The ice. “Okay. Close her up.” The crouching man stood up and stepped away, case in hand. The second man knelt beside her on the ground and she rolled her eyes back up to the leaves, back up to the clouds. Safe. She was taking a huge risk with this one, but there were guarantees, reassurances, and what would they do with it anyhow? The sparrows again, the smell of dead leaves on the ground and the delicious breeze blowing across her chest. She wondered what he was doing at this very moment. Was he getting dressed? Was he going to be there when this thing got dropped off? He said he would. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Posted in Writing
KIN: Agency For The Arts
