Kindle

I have received my Kindle! After a year of thinking about whether to get one or not, I finally took the plunge. I knew I didn't want Kindle 1, but Kindle 2 (or K2, as people call it), was gorgeous. One of my friends at Dell had one, and I'd been eyeing it, but decided not to, at the time. But it never did leave my mind entirely, and finally, a week before Halloween, I decided to take the plunge.
The story of the Kindle's arrival is a story in itself. After days of not receiving any tracking news, I realized that Amazon was using FedEx SmartPost to send the package -- something that caused me a LOT of nervous moments, for the stories about SmartPost aren't exactly exemplary, on the internet. Most people complained that the packages would move around the country for days before finally getting to their destination. Some people said parts of their package were missing -- like one guy who lost his entire Wii console. I was terrified. And then the package showed up in Dallas.
I was relieved. How long could it take, right, to come from Dallas to Austin? The cities are just a 3-hour drive apart. But I was wrong. Four days went by, and no sign of the package, and just as I was about to call Amazon to ask where the hell my package went, it showed up -- in Houston!
Those who know the geography of Texas know that Dallas, Austin and Houston lie in a triangle, more or less the same distance apart from each other (though I think Austin's closer to Dallas than Houston is). WHY the package went to Houston was something I completely failed to fathom. It stayed there for a while, and then set out again to Austin. Here we go again, I thought. This time the package should surely show up in Austin by the next day!
I was wrong. It took another 3 days before it came to Austin, and another day before it was delivered to my home. I think I went half-crazy during the wait, and I know I certainly drove my coworkers mad! But the Kindle was here, I was happy.
I'm still happy with it. It looks beautiful, reads great, just like paper, like Amazon claims. Gotta hand it to eInk! The online selection of Kindle-formatted books is not as vast as I would've liked, and a lot of my favorite authors and books are missing. So are the first books of long-running series of authors like Michael Connelly, Robert Crais and Vince Flynn. A LOT of children's books are missing (what I would've given to have had Enid Blyton on Kindle!). And the battery never seems to last anything like the 2 weeks Amazon claimed, though maybe I read a lot more than they imagined anyone would.
But, the pros outweigh the cons. The K2 is light -- no one can deny that. It's a traveler's delight. It weights barely 11 oz, and fits in 1500 titles (according to Amazon). I wish I'd had it when I went to New Zealand last year! Instead of the 10 books and 3 magazines I took, I could've just taken the Kindle. But anyway. I love that you can buy a book and have it delivered within 60 seconds. I love that you can sample books -- that's how I got started on Dennis Lehanne's Shutter Island. I love how you can email yourself documents and have them arrive on your Kindle at 15c an MB, and peruse them at your leisure. I love the user-friendliness of the new Kindle. Of course it's not going to replace my paper books completely -- there is an undeniable charm in opening a brand new book, reading the crisp black lettering against white paper; even the smell of a new book is charming -- things you'll never find in an electronic reading device. But the Kindle is perfect for what I wanted -- carrying half my library on a 15-hour plane ride!
And I will now return to Shutter Island. Adios!

Fall

Wow. It's fall. It's taken some time to sink in that my favorite season has started. It has crept up on us in Austin...well, that's not quite the truth. It rather forced its way in. September 21st, the last day of summer, was 95 degrees, and September 22nd, the autumnal equinox, was a lovely 69 degrees! I love fall -- the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, as John Keats so aptly wrote. We don't go too much by way of mists here in Austin, but I know exactly what the man meant when he wrote that poem. There is something so...so...mellow and comforting and warm about fall. The rich colors associated with fall help that feel of mellowness. Sadly, we don't get much by way of foliage changes here. At times like these I wish I lived in Colorado, where I could see the aspen brilliantly change their colors. Here, there are a few random trees that do change color -- but very few. But I'm content to imagine the changes, and savor the crisp bite in the cool morning air. It's been getting cooler every passing day, a blessing after the ferocious summer. I love the cold. It's so much easier to cope with cold than heat -- you can always bundle up when it's cold, but you can't strip beyond a certain level of decency when it's too hot!
Fall also means fall fashion! I have to admit, the speed with which I've taken to following fashion trends has taken me by surprise. I can't wait to start dressing in turtlenecks and skirts and tights and boots and scarves...and all the goodness that comes with fall fashion. I was getting sick of wearing shorts. Besides, the colors of fall fashion are much richer, especially this season, with teal, berry, deep orange, rich chocolate brown and black. Lovely.
Fall also means Halloween! I've forever wanted to go dressed as Yuki Cross from Vampire Knights (the manga) for Halloween, for the Cross School's day uniform for girls is absolutely cuteness. But I think, at 25, I'm a little too old to dress up as Yuki Cross. Maybe a good old witch, then. I've never dressed up for Halloween before -- maybe this time will be a first!
I should visit the Bull Creek park sometime. It's been a while since I last went there, and I'm sure it would be beautiful in fall, especially since it's been raining a lot lately. The creek had dried up completely in summer, hopefully it's filled up now. I love that place. I wish I could live on Bull Creek, but I'm sure houses along the creek are extremely expensive!
It's fall! I can now sit in the patio and read books in the cool evening air. In fact, that is precisely what I'm going to do now (I'm reading The Da Vinci Code), so till later!

Quickie

My God, has it really been five months since I last blogged?? Wow. Things have been busy at work, so I haven't really had a chance to write anything. In fact, even as I write this, I'm keeping an eye on the clock on my iHome -- it's 8:43am, and I really should be leaving for work. Work should be fun today -- we have a Pirates' Day at work, where we get to wear eyepatches and say "Ar!" (unfortunately, my team didn't get any eyepatches). I'm also really, really enjoying the new weather -- till about the 8th of this month, it was hot and muggy and just nasty; and then the weather did a sudden about-turn, and it's been cool and windy and cloudy ever since. I love it! I hope it rains today and tomorrow too. It's weird -- the way the weather suddenly changed. And we haven't even reached the autumnal equinox yet! Well, who's complaining? Everybody in Texas wanted some cooler days. It's just the weather to be eating hot pizza and drinking warm cups of Earl Grey tea, and reading detective novels -- like AA Fair's novels, that I have just discovered. AA Fair is the pseudonym of Erle Stanley Gardner, whose Perry Mason novels I used to gobble daily for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner when I was in my teens. Perry Mason novels focus more on the legal aspect of the cases; AA Fair's Cool and Lam books are just pure hardboiled detective fiction, with delicious phrases like "Dr Devarest was dead as a mackarel", or "I socked him one on the jaw, and he let loose with a haymaker from the hip". Ah, hardboiled detective fiction :) There's nothing quite like it! I'm reading a similar book called Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis, except it was written in 2008, not 1948. It's interesting in its own way -- but here, they talk more about DNA forensics and CSI, instead of lifting fingerprints from lipstick. And another look at the clock tells me it's almost 9, so I should start wrapping this up, and get moving to the car. Till later!

Bull Creek Park

I went to Bull Creek District Park the other day. It's a little park in Austin, one of the few (the only?) park with an off-leash dog policy. And that means there are a lot of dogs there. And I mean a LOT. The big ones make me uneasy, because I'm barely taller than some of the bigger dogs myself; but they've all been fairly gentle so far. I went there on a rainy Thursday, and found myself thoroughly enchanted by the view.
Bull Creek is an environmentally protected watershed in the hills of Austin. It's about 5 minutes away from my place, and an easy drive. To get there, you have to drive down Loop 360, which, pretty though it is, is after all a major highway. Off of Loop 360, you turn off on Lakewood Drive, and then drive down to the park. It was this little drive that pleased me -- it was a narrow road, with trees crowding both sides of the road. It looked like I was driving through a random forest, not Austin. I would've looked around more except that there were some cars driving down the opposite side, and I didn't want my little Mazda to crash into them.Once I reached the park, I was enchanted. Bull Creek ran down the edge of the park in a sort of arc. Part of the creek actually ran over Lakewood Drive, though I decided the creek must've swollen because of the rain. The creek ran over some rocks, and was very shallow until it reached a rocky ledge and formed a tiny waterfall of sorts, with the water pouring into a little rock pool. This pool was a little deeper, and a few dogs kept jumping in to play and swim. The pool reached back into dark, mysterious recesses, and water lapped gently against the edge of the bluff that the pool was against.I walked on further. The creek deepened slightly as I walked further away from the rock pool, until it came to some sort of trail (which I later read on Google was part of the Bull Creek trail). Here, under the overhang of some trees, I found a ledge-like rock, just begging me to sit on it. I curled up on the rock, and read the manga I'd been gifted earlier that day, and then drew the creek in front of me. It was beautiful there. The forest stretched behind me and to my left. On my right, a couple of dogs played fetch with their owners in the water. In front of me, on the other side of the creek, the hills rose sharply, and all I could see of the million-dollar mansions on top of the hills were their rounded rooftops. Against the red of the rooftops, the clouds glowed with a grey light. It was just beautiful.
I hung out there for a little while, but had to return when it started raining. But I'll be back for sure!

Rain, rain, rain

Austin is so funny. It's hot and dry one day, raining and cold the next, and hot and dry the next day again! It's raining right now. It's been raining since yesterday, and Austin is now really starting to resemble Dunedin or Bombay more than the capital of Texas. However, I'm not complaining. People think I'm weird when I say this, but I love rains. I love it when it's dark and cloudy and windy, with a hint of rain in the air. I don't mind it so much when it actually starts to rain; but I prefer it in that 'twilight phase', as I call it, just before the rain. I dislike what people consider nice days -- hot and sunny and bright. I think I might've been a bat or something in a former life! I don't particularly love the dark, but I don't like bright sunlight either. Gentle sunlight filtering in through dark clouds is my type of day.
It's still raining. I can hear the pitter-patter of rain drops on the roof, the sound filtering down through the chimney. I almost expect to see water in my fireplace, but that hasn't happened. There's a large tree with red berries right outside my balcony that my coworker, Matt, said was an 'invasive plant'. It's now swaying slightly in the breeze, and perhaps under the weight of water. Large, luminous teardrops of water have formed on its leaves and some of the berries, which look like pearls, they glisten so. I can also see rainwater pattering down onto my blacony wall, from where it is dripping down in a steady rhythm onto the floor of the balcony. My patio chair and table are soaked, and I can see droplets of water gathered at the cross-beams of the table and chair. Outside, the roads are wet, and shimmering as they reflect the streetlights. The sun isn't up yet, or even if it was, I doubt it would be visible through the thick blanket of clouds. Water is running down the window of my study, trickling down and pooling at the base, before dropping off the sill. Outside, through the distorted view produced by refraction of light through the water droplets, I can see the gray skies with some luminosity, as if the sun were struggling to get through but failing. The green grass outside is weighed down with water, as are the fresh spring leaves of the trees outside. It's a scene worthy of a painting.
But I can't sit and admire it for long, as I have to get going for work. It's going to be tricky going to work again, as my tires tend to skid when I'm changing lanes while it's raining; but I'm sure I can make it. So I should get going, and take advantage of the fact that the rain has abated for a bit now, and driving the car should not be that hard. Adios!

Oil Painting

I finally completed my first oil painting in over three years, last Sunday. I've been painting in oils since I was seventeen, and it isn't particularly hard; in fact, I'd say it's one of the easiest mediums I've ever used. You can correct any of your mistakes, and just add layer after layer of paint, and if the paint is thick enough, even mold it so that it reflects light in a particular way. But there's one thing you need dollops of when you're painting in oils: patience. And I'm afraid the seventeen-year-old me was never particularly strong in that aspect, so my paintings were understandably sub-par. I knew I could produce better paintings; I just never had the patience to let the underpainting dry enough for me to produce a clear glaze or a thick impasto layer over it. I'd start it while the paint was still wet, and mess everything up. And then, I committed the cardinal sin of using turpentine for every layer to thin the paint, just so it would dry faster. All those people who've worked with oils know it takes about a week for the underpainting to dry thoroughly. As a result of using the turpentine, the paint would dry in just a day or two; but there would be only a thin layer of paint on canvas, with the texture of the canvas clearly visible under the painting, and the painting itself looking shabby and underdone. Consequently, I didn't make a lot of oil paintings, and gave up half-heartedly on something I'd started working on. The only painting I ever produced of note was when I was twenty, with college on. I'd made the painting in the middle of classes, and as there never was enough time to spend on the painting, it took a lot of time to paint it -- resulting in well-dried under layers, and one of the best paintings I'd ever made. It was a scene of village cricket: a bunch of men playing cricket on a cool meadow (although there were no clouds in the sky). That had remained my favorite painting (maybe in some ways it still is), but Sunday's effort well overshadowed that.
It was, simply put, a painting of a man and his son on a beach, looking out at the horizon. I took the inspiration from my own book, The Boy From Dunedin, and tried to recollect the clarity of the water in New Zealand as I painted it. Of course it didn't look like anything I'd thought it would look like; but it turned out to be a good piece of art nevertheless. I loved it. And the reason it turned out so well was because, it seems in those seven years since I started oil painting, I've gotten a good measure of paitience that I was lacking earlier. I would let each layer of paint dry before starting the new one. I applied a thick impasto layer of paint for the underpainting, and added thinner glazes on top. The result was magical, with significantly more depth than any of my earlier paintings had. I was proud of it. The yellow ocher of the beach, the turquoise-blue of the sea, the red shirt of the man, the green of the grass -- it all combined to make a striking combination. The only mess I made was the clouds, which look like storm clouds on an otherwise clear day. But I decided to let it ride, and call it "artistic impression", instead of what it really was -- a mistake! Haha. Hopefully my next painting will be far better, but here is my current painting nevertheless.

Mozart's

Today I went to Mozart's. Everyone who lives in Austin has heard of Mozart's Coffee Roasters -- the coffee shop on Lake Austin, down Lake Austin Blvd. They roast their own coffee, which is delicious enough, but the main attraction is, at least in my opinion, the outer deck of Mozart's, which is right next to the lake. You can take your steaming cup of coffee out in the open, sit under a tree and feel the breeze from the lake wash over you. That's what I did today.
I've been planning to go to Mozart's ever since I bought the car -- did I mention I bought a car? I did, a silver Mazda3, but I digress. Ever since I bought the car, I've been planning to drive to Mozart's, but somehow or the other the plan was always canceled. But today was such a beautiful day -- cool, dark, overcast -- that I knew I'd regret it if I didn't go today. So I fed in the destination to my GPS, and off I went.
I wound through an awful lot of streets to get there. Some of them sloped alarmingly, and the entire journey reminded me of my 'adventure' through Rain Creek Pkwy (that story some other time). I finally wound up at Lake Austin Blvd, and from there, Mozart's was just a short distance away. I parked, and went over to the little complex that contains the little coffee shop.
I had evidently reached there early -- too early or too late, for the outside deck was nearly deserted. I ordered my coffee -- which was served by a cute guy who looked too much like Ian Somerhalder for me to not stare -- and took the cup outside. There was a two-person bench right next to the parapet, so I took my coffee mug there, and settled myself. As I stirred the coffee, the cool breeze from the lake washed over me, and ducks swam around with wild abandon in the water. One of them scuttled across the water, leaving a white trail of spray across the smooth surface. Another dived into the water, and remained with its tailfeathers sticking out in the air, its head under water. Ripples spread out from its tail, and I choked back laughter.
I took out my handy Moleskine notebook, and began to draw. I used the thinner black pen today, for I wanted to get some details, rather than a broad overall sketch. As I drew, a terrific wind kicked up, and leaves lying on the ground swirled up and around. I hurriedly flung my hand over my coffee cup, for I did not want to be drinking coffee with leaves in it. My hair whipped around my face, and the pages of my notebook flapped wildly. Finally, the wind died down, and everyone started drinking their coffee again.
There was a middle-aged couple opposite me. I think they were on a date, and I'm pretty sure they met on one of the online dating sites -- Match.com maybe? -- for the gentleman mentioned, "I don't like the concept of 'winks', I prefer real communication," and the woman nodded sagely. I think their date didn't really work out, for the man said something to that effect. I didn't eavesdrop, though, honest. He was really loud, and sound tends to carry across water.
A while later, a lady came in with a furry little dog. She tied it up to a chair, and the poor little thing didn't protest even a whit. It even bore another gust of wind in silence, while its white fur flapped around. When she left, a young woman came over and sat right behind me. I could feel her stealing gazes at what I was drawing, but she didn't bother me. All people seem to have a strange curiosity for artists at work. I admit it myself -- when I see someone else drawing, my feet seem to magically go over to that person.
A couple of young men came in after a while, and sat down at the bench to my right, right under the big tree in the center of the deck. They looked like Computer Science grad students to me, for some reason. My senses are usually attuned to sniffing out other CS grads, and these two felt like it. One had long hair tied in a ponytail, and the other one was a stout young man with short hair and a beard. They both booted up their laptops and got to work.
Elsewhere, a young lady sat chatting with her friend, with her baby next to her in a baby basket. It was tucked up in a mauve blanket, and waved its fat fists around, its eyes following every motion curiously, its mouth curling up with glee every now and then. It was an adorable baby.
Right in front of me, a branch waved in the wind. The tree was mostly bare, but baby green leaves were starting to sprout on it. I thought it was an oak tree, but I'm not sure -- isn't the oak evergreen? Anyway, the pale green leaves twirled around in the breeze, spinning round and round, but still staying attached to the branch. It was a very charming branch indeed.
Right above my head, a plump squirrel was ferretting about for nuts. It kept jumping from one branch to another, its bushy tail flicking as it looked around. I was half afraid it would jump on my head, but it didn't. The branch it was on swayed alarmingly in another gust of wind, and the little creature was startled and bounded away.
I sat there for a long, long time, admiring the view, the animals, the people, the breeze -- just the vitality of the place. Finally, I packed in my things, and got up to leave. I cast one last glance at the place -- it was still just as beautiful, and a white boat had drawn up next to the boathouse -- and turned around, and walked back up the street to the parking lot, and back home.

(Other sketches from the day)

Meeting sketches

I tend to get royally bored during meetings at work. Often the conversation goes round and round the same topic, without reaching any conclusion, ever. I used to follow it when I had just started working -- not any more. Now, I just draw. I can be fairly prolific during meetings -- just like our developers' meeting on Tuesday was. I was amazed myself at how quickly I ended up with so many drawings -- and they weren't overly casual sketches either. Here they are, scanned in -- drawn in my Moleskine notebook, with the formerly mentioned black india ink artist pen, and colored in with watercolor pencils (though I haven't washed them yet).

I made the following drawings earlier: one is a drawing of Austin's beautiful Pennybacker Bridge over Loop 360 (usually called the 360 Bridge), drawn from a photograph from a calendar, and the other is something I'd drawn from memory -- a young man surfing the internet (I presume) at the Chipotle restaurant at Parmer and Metric.

Art Blog

I was rather bored at work today, not having much to do (for once!), so I started googling my favorite subject: art. And I was fascinated to discover this website: Urban Sketchers. It's an art blog -- where artists upload their images, and also sometimes the stories behind them. I absolutely loved the travel sketch feel of the website, and felt inspired enough to do the same on my blog. Besides, I don't seem to have much to say these days, so why not replace words by sketches? I made a prodigious number of sketches today (I was bored, remember?) and in went scribbles and doodles into my trusty little Moleskine. After work I went to Hobby Lobby, and found myself in something resembling paradise. I even found a Sakura marker set, but it was only in black, whereas I expressly wanted colored markers (to make colorful sketches!) so I regretfully bypassed it. But I did find a treasure -- a Faber-Castell black India ink artist pen and a sepia-toned Pentel color brush -- a pen that has a brush-like tip. I of course had to try them out the moment I got home, and did so. The results are below.

Park at the back of the Arboretum. Black Sharpie pen on Moleskine (02.26.09)

Girl brushing her hair in front of a mirror. Black Sharpie pen on Moleskine (02.26.09)

My rather skewed version of Austin's Pennybacker Bridge, drawn from memory while driving down the bridge. Black Sharpie pen on Moleskine (02.26.09)

View from my study window. Black India Ink artist pen and sepia color brush pen. (02.26.09)