Updated 2025_06_13
Table of Contents
What I’m Up to Now
Jobs and Clients
Documentation and Markdown
Gardening
Current and Queued Animation and Art Projects
Panorama Digital Painting in Blender for Web and Animation
Photogrammetry
Big Brutus Visioning
Children’s Public Health Propaganda
Merchandise
Community and Hobbies
Archery
Nature, Hike, Bike Meetups
Mask Bloc / Clean Air / Direct Aid
Social and Civic Meetups
Recent Media Selections
Reading Now
Recent Audio Books Read
Recently Enjoyed Artwork
Recently Enjoyed Artwork
Recent Articles (Re)Read
Recent Podcasts & Episodes Listened
What I’m up to Now
I’m based in Springfield MO. I have a lot of projects going but here’s a few.
Jobs & Clients
I am absolutely open for work solicitations, and applying for gigs, projects, odd jobs, even the right W2 job. I’m interested in commission and contract clients, print shops, art departments, fabrication, etc. Time to make money.
A forthcoming print project for Mosaica Rose Studio is in the early stages.
Documentation and Markdown
I’m working on text documentation and tutorials often these days. They help with resuming idled and parked tasks, and also it’s proving a good way of putting closure on old work done and past by making it usable and communicable into the future.
As part of documentation, I’m slowly growing my ability to use markdown notation for both note documents and web formatting. It solves the problem of keeping documents mobile, shareable, and readable while allowing rich formatting and hyperlinking. I’ll be posting text markdown file duplicates of tutorials from here out.
Gardening
After much weeding, the garden is coming along. Perennials are doing great in their pots and in transplants. Late plantings of sunflowers and cowpeas are sprouting presently from direct sowing. My annual fruit and veg and herb transplants are mostly over transplant shock, some more than others, but I’m still ahead of where I was by this time the last couple years. The plan is always to direct sow more, but lunarscape weeding sufficient for tiny seedlings feels a bit unattainable between the unending extraction of buried grass rhizomes and bindweed roots. I’m now acquainted with using an electric tiller, much better than what I’ve used before.
After much trial and error germinating them (plastic dome in the sun but not too much sun seems the most effective), the eggplant is suffering mightily from flea beetles. I’m spraying them with a solution of neem oil, dish soap, and water, to mixed results. Must reapply frequently. The zucchini/kousa are staked upright and climbing, but are experiencing trouble with hollow fruits falling off from underpollination. Hopefully this remedies with the frequent rain disruption of pollinators subsiding. Catching the blossoms while they’re open to pollinate with a brush seems a narrow window.
Also spotted growing well enough, basil, dill, chilacayote squash / fig-leaf gourd, butternut squash, carrots, blackseed, I’m impatient with the watermelon. I think I have more shade than they prefer. The garlic bulbils are doing well despite not going in in the fall. The perennials are all doing well. In containers the strawberry survived division and are trailing in hanging pots, the yarrow is still blooming, and the copper iris is finished for now with rather ornate seed pods plumping up. The comfrey in ground is attracting carpenter bees, about the only pollinators this year I’ve spotted at all, which is itself very alarming. The frequent rain can contribute to this but all the research on insect populations keeps showing a massive crash. ⚰️🪦💀
I just got news that the Ozark chinquapin seedlings I passed along made it into the ground finally, I’m pleased. Hopefully they got their own tree tubes because mine are still sitting here with me without explanation.
Current and Queued Animation and Art Projects
Surface Design
I now have an Inkscape process documented for making tiled, repeating vector designs for fabric, wallpaper, and merchandise, see my recent tutorial here. This furthers a vining watermelon concept I’ve been working on but it needs quite a bit more work, meanwhile I’m really waffling on how many colors, light on dark or reverse, outlines or no, etc for a cohesive, elegant design before I get to fleshing out and polishing details. Changes at that point are not trivial in terms of time and effort.
Panorama Digital Painting in Blender for Web and Animation
I have a lot of work to do digitally painting 360° equirectangular panoramas, but I paused work to solve some technical debt and retool to work around severe problems with large raster canvas and brush size lag and system resource bottlenecks. Blender’s raster image layer system is not great for using in artwork either. It remains to explore addons and plugins for raster layering but I’ve mostly pivoted towards learning and adapting Blender’s Grease Pencil tool to this task. Grease Pencil’s spline-based stroke and keyframe systems should also help with animateability of art assets.
I’ll begin with redoing my Blender and Grease Pencil notes to review, but otherwise I’m basically at the stage of brush tinkering, style tests, and treatments of adapting Photo Sphere photography. As far as displaying the work, the freemium WPVR WordPress plugin does some basics, see my galleries of Photo Spheres and painted panoramas, but I’ll be seeking more advanced options in future.
Photoshop has a 360° raster painting feature these days, however whenever possible Adobe must not be relied upon.
Photogrammetry
My photo archive includes a lot of object capture feedstock for 3D software photogrammetry experiments to convert them to 3D models and texture maps, it’s been a hot minute since I spent time with Meshroom but it has a particular node procedure that needs a deep investigation to churn out clean geometry and texture, which will likely extend to a Blender pipeline.
Big Brutus Visioning
Regarding historic Big Brutus a retired, orange, 13-story electric coal shovel of West Mineral, Kansas, with which my family has much history: The museum board members are receptive to my idea I just need to put together a presentation/animation envisioning development and electrification, especially visitor vehicle charging and regulatory considerations thereof. They’re so close with excellent facilities and power/water/waste hookups for RV campers and food truck vendors with a comprehensive overnight fee, but no metering for day visitors. Make it a vehicle charging or supercharging destination, supplement a “Southeast Kansas History of Electric Power” narrative to their excellent mining history and miner’s union content, and I think you tap and develop a growing market.
Children’s Public Health Propaganda
I really enjoyed working on the Freddy Fox cartoons for Freeman and I’m keen to get back to practical and utopian messaging. PPE, aerosol transmission, and infection pathology are subject matters I’m keen to make great content for, such as more public service announcement ad spots. If Freeman or a competitor wants to pay me for one, that would be FANTASTIC. Call me! 📞
Merchandise
Print-To-Order merchandise and laser-cut stencils for inexpensive home spray-paint prints.
Community and Hobbies
Archery
I’m working on cash flow to pay the facility fees for the Springfield Park Board outdoor archery facilities, but I’d like to start up with my bow again again, especially with friends.Springfield-Greene County Park Board Archery Complex, Programs, and Events
Nature, Hike, Bike Meetups
I would be most pleased by trail hiking, kayaking, and street bicycling group outings as well as outdoor dining / picnics / potlucks. Hit me up!
Mask Bloc / Clean Air / Direct Aid
I’m hoping to join a local Mask Bloc such as are listed on MaskBlock.org for respirator mask and air filter distribution, fit-testing, public health resources, as well as clean air safe/accessible arts and culture event organizing and planning a la Clean Air Club of Chicago
I’ve spent the last 5 years learning about airborne disease transmission and SARS2 pathology as public health has been dismantled. I intend to stay healthy and able. I’m keen to help others catch up with clean air. I’m often seen sporting a bright pink, floral Flo Mask indoors and among the people these days. I still need to do actual measured fit-tests!
Mask Bloc Los Angeles and other direct aid / mutual aid organizations in that area have been essential during the fires as the city and county government has entirely given up on PPE, planned to leave incarcerated children locked up to die inside active wildfire zones, and arrested people whose homes don’t exist anymore for camping, etc.
Social and Civic Meetups
Keep me posted on meetups and opportunities for gardening, cooking, house music shows, life drawing and plein air painting sessions, human rights and labor solidarity, education, food and shelter, conservation projects, constituent actions, and good times!
Recent Media Selections
Reading Now
earth.nullschool.net
Interactive globe and map with live, animated satellite and ground instrument overlays of atmospheric, surface, ocean conditions, currents, chemistry, and weather at various altitudes
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton
Recent Audio Books Read
Pacific Edge by Kim Stanley Robinson
A Second Chance at Eden by Peter F. Hamilton
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Librivox Parts 1 & 2
and Parts 3 &4
The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
Hawk Mountain by Conner Habib
Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Maude Translation)
Books 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, & 17
Recently Enjoyed Artwork
Puparia by Shingo Tamagawa on Youtube
Oso by Hack n Trade on Youtube
2012 by Ingo Taschka et al on Youtube
PIG by Jorn Leeuwerink on Youtube
The Meaning of Bunny’s Dream by Anatola Howard on Youtube
Artist Choo on Tumblr
Melon, Sirene, 🎂, and Cherry Picking
Artist Maquenda on Tumblr
1, 2, and 3
Animator Luke Humphris on Youtube
Space Station Weird #1
House between the VOID and the ABYSS
Meals. Mates. Media.
Animator Dedouze on Youtube
1, 2, and 3
DRONE by Sean Buckelew on Youtube
Artist Houndsaint on Twitter
1, 2, and 3
Rusalka by Aleksandr Petrov on Youtube
Recent Articles (Re)Read
The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill by Megan Molteni
Wired (paywalled), Archive.ph
Douaud, G., Lee, S., Alfaro-Almagro, F. et al. SARS-CoV-2 is associated with changes in brain structure in UK Biobank. Nature 604, 697–707 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04569-5
Growing Garlic from True Seed by Ted Jordan Meredith and Avram Drucker
Garlicana
Haddrell, A., Oswin, H., Otero-Fernandez, M. et al. Ambient carbon dioxide concentration correlates with SARS-CoV-2 aerostability and infection risk. Nature Communications 15, 3487 (2024).
Xia Li, Chenpeng Zhang, Yuan Fang, Mei Xin, Jianbo Shi, Zhiyuan Zhang, Zhen Wang, Zhenhu Ren – Promising outcomes 5 weeks after a surgical cervical shunting procedure to unclog cerebral lymphatic systems in a patient with Alzheimer’s disease: General Psychiatry 2024;37:e101641.
Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota:
H5N1 avian flu isolate from dairy worker is transmissible, lethal in animals
Anosognosia
Wikipedia
Recent Podcasts & Episodes Listened
Science Quickly: Do Mitochondria Talk to Each Other? A New Look at the Cell’s Powerhouse
Youtube, audio
In Defense of Plants Podcast: Ep. 525 – Lessons from Ancient Grasslands
audio
Bad Faith: Episode 476 – The Forgotten History of Jewish Anti-Zionism (w/ Zachary Foster)
Youtube, audio
The Andrew Price Podcast: #1: Habits of Effective Artists (Revisited)
Youtube, audio
Drop Site News: The Real Toll of the War in Gaza: A Conversation With Two Doctors
Dropsite, Youtube, audio
Bad Faith: Episode 432 – The Third Party That Won the White House (w/ Matt Karp)
Youtube
Palestine Deep Dive: Re-reading Ghassan Kanafani in the Struggle Against Genocide | Hazem jamjoum
Youtube, audio
Death Panel: LA Burns but We Keep Us Safe (Part One) (01/16/25)
audio
Death Panel: LA Burns but We Keep Us Safe (Part Two) (01/23/25)
audio
TrueAnon: Episode 419: Afghan Dope
Youtube, audio
UNAPOLOGETIC: Episode 20 – 100-year history of US meddling, coups and wars in the Middle East | Roy Casagranda
Youtube, audio
Farming Today, BBC Radio 4
BBC, RSS audio feed
In Defense of Plants Podcast: Ep. 455 – The Many Mysteries of Seed Dormancy
audio
Pod Damn America: The Airborne Toxic Event w/ Julia Doubleday
“Writer and former Bernie staffer Julia Doubleday joins Jake to talk about how the Democrats all gave each other COVID at the DNC.”
Accessible, reasonably short primer on science of SARS-CoV-2 / Covid viral transmission and practical mitigation thereof, as well as a history of public failures and political malfeasance to act and communicate accordingly.
audio
Palestine Deep Dive: Exposed: How Western Media Can Be Prosecuted for Its Role In Gaza Genocide | Craig Mokhiber
Youtube, audio