and then we went for a ride in the mini cooper s.

Originally uploaded by paintMonkey.

i cleverly combined the acts of human shield with being acting capt of the bbq, i thought...

Originally uploaded by paintMonkey.

A great weekend celebrating sweet Sophie Pi's first birthday at
DragonDrop.
Good times for all.

the circle is now complete

ich dachte, daß ich die deutschen Richtlinien für panography, gerade für eine Änderung versuchen würde
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey.

So here i am back in an architect's office, sixteen years after having left the industry, marvellous stuff... almost felt like i'd never left. Really excited to be back with my feet under a drawing board and looking forward to getting involved. My first day was busier than i expected, straight into drawing up plans for provisional planning applications.
If all goes according to plan i could actually be back studying in september.. although more realistically it'll be a couple of years down the line and do the vocational study program... i'll be frantically doodling houses over the summer no doubt ...[grin]

To continue my narrative of the weirdness of synchronicity, the one man band architect that i am doing my work experience with...we'll call him Robert for the sake of blogging.... turns out he was born in Zambia, as i was for those of who don't know, and also harks from Uckfield in Sussex, which is where my first boarding school was... there were a couple of other odd similarities that turned up.. regarding lifestyle, that surprised me too....
i could get a little freaked out by it all except i wont... it all feels good.

Random Access Memory

fifth year english lit class 1987
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey.

old photos..... now there's something which stirs the feelings...

With people away on various away missions this weekend, and being seriously strapped for cash, i set myself a mini project;
Random Access Memory i called it.
Basically, putting my hand into one of four plastic carrier bags full of old photos and pulling out a handful at random (well it started out as random, but i kept pulling out photos of the same people and things)... uploaded them to Flickr.
A useful exercise all round, found a whole bunch of photos which were not mine, so they have been packed up and returned to their respective owners by various obscure lines of communication, which, both at the same time, draws a line under some things and makes me feel that its a shame for the way things turned out in certain respects.
one thing that did surprise me though... these montage composite things i've been doing digitally for the last couple of years... it seems i've been doing it for the last twenty years or so. I found a whole bunch of what i thought were random, film wasting photos on a theme...only to realise that they had been waiting to be constructed all this time. which was nice. they're quite uninspired but nice that they're done. They've been done and uploaded too.

By a weird stroke of synchronicity, and unrelated to the mini project, i had two old friends contact me this weekend from way back when i lived in London (gawd bless the internet)... and a third's (from uni) email addy was passed to me just as i was uploading a photo of them to Flickr.

[ponders the nature and significance of synchronicity]

just before i collided with the sides of the bridge and slightly damaged my shins, i was going whoosh whoosh to myself

just before i collided with the sides of the bridge and slightly damaged my shins, i was going whoosh whoosh to myself
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey.

the synchronicity behind deciding to sit outside, some orange juice flavoured shortbread and the changing of plans...

the synchronicity behind deciding to sit outside, some orange juice flavoured shortbread and the changing of plans...
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey.

the contents of Clover

the contents of Clover
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey.

The homeward journey after a brilliant day having fun at Newby Hall... a big day for the Shed Crew, my small contribution was to get about a million treasure hunting kids to help me find my roar as a smoking jacket wearing lion in the woods. Smiles all round as drumming workshops, talking robo-pirates, faeries, willy wonka and various other faerie tale characters put on a good show.
Moo and the boys ran free in the grounds, the stories she was telling of what they got up to me reminded me of an enid blyton plot, really chuffed with how well she gets on with them, its such a safe space that any worries were quickly allayed Already excited about doing it all again next year...
A lazy morning today with Moo eating the last of the Easter Chocolate, maybe a trip to the pub later

i soon found out that its a little bit harder than playing it on the nintendo wii

i soon found out that its a little bit harder than playing it on the wii
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey.

tired from learning to ride her bike, we stopped to eat a mars bar, check the tamogatchi and take a rest.

tired from learning to ride her bike, we stopped to eat a mars bar, check the tamogatchi and take a rest.
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey.

the weather is finally good enough to let moo out on the bike santa brought her for christmas...mixed results there.
i, probably foolishly, bought myself a new red bike.. i always wanted a red bike as a kid and now i have one :)

but boy does my butt ache this evening.

Rückenfigur at the market

market
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey.

About Rückenfigur

Literally meaning "back figure", the term rückenfigur is usually associated with German romantic painters, such as Caspar David Friedrich, to describe a viewpoint that includes another person seen from behind, viewing a scene spread out before the viewer.

Over the years this particular technique has found its way quite substantially into the heart of both photography and cinema, but strangely receives little acknowledgment in either...

bernie (the inventor of vital, the robo-pirate and the 3 billion bubble machine) relaxes and DragonDrop looks on...

bernie (the inventor of vital, the robopirate and the 3 billion bubble machine) relaxes, dragondrop looks on
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey.

Although my head is busy with various thoughts and the like, its all i can do to copy and paste my horoscopes for today;

Like your fellow Aries, you need to be brave. It takes courage to overcome the pull of the past, or to feel pain about something or somebody and just keep going. Sure, you’re in uncomfortable territory but it’s taking you somewhere important.