Twas the day of the night before and all that jazz

Yesterday was supposed to be a break in the storm action for most of the day.

It sure looked that way when I headed out from home but the dark clouds were hovering over RB and opened up over BAE systems and some Sony buildings.

It was kinda kewl but it was also a reminder that the truck needs new windshield wipers. Still, I got a quick look at a rainbow in the middle of the honking huge grey spewing rain cloud to start the work day.

If I were a better blogger, I'd a photo. Who knows? Maybe I'll make mounting hunky chunky old digital camera to the dash a 2009 resolution.

All things considered it was good work day with plenty of progress on current projects.

Although the skies were threatening, I managed to get home before the predicted rain happened or perhaps I was running South ahead of the rain.

Today's my first of five days away from the office so I slept in, brewed up a blend of Sumatran and French Roast before doing some number crunching and software shopping.

I'm sort of surprised that San Jose State doesn't support using Open Office as an alternative to Microsoft Office but it looks like I can pick up a copy of the latter for about 100 bucks (about the same price as one of my required texts) and I'm thinking that I may opt to go to Framemaker 8 by buying the technical creative suite (includes Acrobat 9, Robohelp, Framemaker 8. and Captivate) for not much more than the Framemaker 8 purchased alone.

That way I can stay with Framemaker 7.1 , Webworks 7 and Acrobat 6 on the current XP box to stay mostly compatible with the day job work environment but also grow my skill set on the newer software. Given cash flow, the Technical Creative Suite purchase will not be a top priority in 2009 but it is on the objectives/agenda.

Another big reason for crunching numbers today was, of course, the art question. My id, ego and superego had a wrestling match. My calculations told me that if art was eligible for the 75% discount, I could swing (although it will a trade off) at least one if not both of the two pieces if they were still there.

So shortly after 1pm I walked out into the world and, shock, amazement, bought art.

Art was 50% not 75% off and while I was ready to just roll on home based on the balance sheet in my head, John ran his numbers and a compromise deal was reached. In my world view I spent 2x more than I planned but got a 2-fer.

So I paid, walked home, and drove back with truck to transport my treasures.

When I got home, I staged and shot in the failing light some photos of the new to me art. Only the oil of the Japanese mountain (aka the lesser valued piece) made the cut of photo inclusion.

Interestingly, the piece that stuck in my head (aka the Chinese brush stroke piece) at purchase point was the one valued higher and that I loved rather less.

Now that I have both home and have had occasion to see both without the clutter of other images, I understand why the piece that stuck in my head stuck.

It is an abstract piece, which is a bit odd for Chinese brush work, and when I saw in the noise of the other art, I bought into the idea that it was a face.

Now that I've had it isolated I am convinced that it is a static expression of a figure in motion.

Even if I'm wrong from the point of the artist's intent, I'm right to how it spoke to me and demanded to come live with me. I'm going to try to track down the history of the piece from the framing information.

While it would be interesting and clearly valuable to know if it truly is an X original at Y value, for me it would be even more interesting to know if, assuming an X if X's vision was face or figure. Cheeky bitch that I am, I might even enjoy sending X a missive suggesting that his face is actually a figure in motion study.

Today's photos include an update on the still scary ugly 10th and Robinson, a less than ideal image of the lesser valued oil of a Japanese mountain, and, in scary face mode, a sidewalk art Maggie face image.