Knocked Back to the Stone Age (or at least, 1997)

Ouch. We had a nasty accident here in the SF Bay area...at around 4am last Sunday a tanker truck overturned, and its cargo of 8,600 gallons of unleaded gasoline ignited.

This happened in an area locals call "the MacArthur Maze", because it is just east of the toll plaza for the Oakland-SF Bay bridge, and it is at a point where about five freeways interchange.The freeways all crisscross each other with flyovers and viaducts several layers tall. The truck exploded directly underneath a flyover for I-580, constructed of asphalt and concrete supported by a steel lattice. Steel starts to get soft at around 1000 degrees, and flat-out melts at 2750. They estimate the fire from the gasoline burned at around 3000 degrees for two hours. So it wasn't long before the roadway above collapsed onto the other freeway below.

It was the eastbound 580 that crashed onto the southbound 880. Oh well, we got to have the 880 back for almost ten years. You see, this is the same section of freeway that pancaked in the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. They finally finished the replacement in 1997-1998, so it had taken almost ten years to replace it. While it was out, one had to take a long and tricky detour through central Oakland if you were heading south along the East Bay. That's what we are back to. The highway department said that repairs could take several months; one of the reasons being a shortage of steel! Boy, I sure am glad that I can work mostly from home. If I weren't a telecommuter, I'd really be feeling the pinch!

By the way, there was a tanker explosion almost in the same place a few years ago. This one scorched the underside of the westbound flyover of I-580, but not enough to melt it. So to all you truckers out there (especially those hauling flammable cargoes), PLEASE, slow down when you go through the maze. The freeway you save may be your own...

Good, Full Day

I am just sitting here eating a bowl of key lime sherbet, and it's going down real good. It's been a pretty warm evening here. The forecast is for flirtation with the 90 degree mark by the end of the week. It looks like we may be skipping spring again this year--straight into summer.

It's nice to sit down. My joints were getting a little cranky after wrestling with a bunch of wood stock for a few hours. I made some good headway on the desk organizer this evening. I've got just about all the pieces cut to length, so tomorrow (barring any major work flare-ups) I should be able to get the router going and turn all the edges. It's starting to come along nicely. All my cuts were coming out symmetrical tonight; no major measurement mishaps. So I'm tired, but it's a good tired.

I feel like I got a lot accomplished today. Ealier I got a whole bunch of clips done and submitted for review to the Lucasfilm folks. This includes the latest versions of those typewriters. I think they are looking pretty cool.

Then I had to go over to Home Depot to score some more quarter inch poplar for the shelving on the organizer. On the way back, I stopped by the Nut Tree to see how things are coming along. I looked through the gate at the rides. It looks like they are only open Friday to Monday now. I am assuming there might be weekday hours during the summer. The rides look like fun--I can't wait to give them a try.

The stores are starting to occupy, although some interiors are still being assembled. I went and had my first Peet's Coffee from the Nut Tree store...they make a pretty decent latté.

Then I cruised by the bocce courts. They were packed!! I couldn't believe it; there must have been dozens of people there. I think that's so cool. Families, friends, all out enjoying the warm evening, all playing a game they don't know how to pronounce, let alone know the rules for. I suspect quite a few were playing with a bowling sensibility. Give us time. Pretty soon we'll all be playing with an almost European grace and decorum! :)

The Nut Tree

For anyone who is not familiar with the Nut Tree in Vacaville, here is a little background info for you. Of course, for those of us who grew up or lived in northern California in the latter part of the last century, no introduction is needed. Nut Tree was that cool place you sometimes got to stop at when on a road trip--but only if you promised to stop pummeling your sibling in the back seat of the station wagon. It was a place that was mentioned at least once on any such road trip, often prefaced with "can you hold it until we get to the..."

It was a road trip way-station. It was a auto-tourist complex consisting of restaurant, gift shop, toy store, and replete with the all-important, clean restrooms. Then of course there were the rides. It had big hobby horses, carousel, and a really cool, miniature steam train you could ride on.

It was in Vacaville, which is an oasis on a barren stretch of I-80, roughly midway between Sacramento and the San Francisco bay area. Now mind you, I didn't get to experience the Nut Tree that much growing up, because for my family Vacaville was an end destination much of the time, seeing as my brother lived there for many years. I only remember being taken there one time, and that was by my brother and his wife of the time. I think it must have been around my birthday, because I remember getting this really cool toy airplane on a stick, and it would whiz round and round for hours, draining the life out of any batteries in the house I could lay my hands on.

HISTORY
The Nut Tree began, as the story goes, in the summer of 1921--when a blistering heat wave caused all of the figs to ripen almost simultaneously. The grower needed to sell the crop fast, so they put up a little fruit stand alongside what was then highway 40, under the shade of a huge walnut tree. This worked out well, so the following year they created a more permanent building with an attached kitchen. The place became quite popular, and featured several signature dishes. It marked the beginning of what would be later known as "California Cuisine".

The Nut Tree continued to flourish and evolve. The Toy Shop and model railroad were added in 1952. The Nut Tree airport was added in 1955. A newer, more modern restaurant was built in 1958.

In 1953, the Nut Tree hired artist Don Birrell as their chief designer. He studied at a prominent art school, and created a signature look of clean lines, bold color, and impeccable form and design. He was instrumental in bringing northern California to the forefront of commercial art in the 1950s and 60s. For the Nut Tree, he designed the architecture, the signage, the menu, and even the way the food was arranged on the plates in the restaurant! Before the concept of "branding" was even kicked around in the marketing world, he created the branding for the Nut Tree. This man had a very lasting effect on the city of Vacaville--you can still see examples of his work adorning buildings all over town. (Sadly, Mr. Birrell passed away last year.)

Then years of increasing competition from fast food restaurants and outlet stores took their toll, and in 1996 the Nut Tree closed its doors. In 2000, the City of Vacaville bought the property, and a few years later the buildings were torn down. Plans soon emerged that spoke of a return of the Nut Tree--this time as a shopping center, a vineyard, an amusement park, and and an open-space shopping village (inspired by the design of the renovated Ferry Building in San Francisco). And now, in early 2007, most of it is complete! The village portion is still being completed, but the rest of the shopping center is filling in nicely. They have even begun signups for the bocce league! I've never played that game before, but it sounds mighty tempting...

Digging the Past

Another of my major interests of late has been genealogy. I have been digging in the past for clues about my family heritage, and my search has turned up some crazy stuff! We've got artists, dentists, farmers, a famous photographer, a famous serial killer, a reform school inmate, survivors of the SF 1906 earthquake, and a suicidal leap into the San Francisco Bay (in 1888!).

I first started getting into it just after my parents passed away in 1997-98. At that time, my siblings and I inherited a lot of little scraps of the past, and going through it all opened up a lot more questions than it did provide answers. So I began my search for information as to who was who and what was what. A lot of people get into genealogy, but only after they retire. Reason being, it takes a lot of time, and a lot of all-day trips to various libraries searching for little scraps of information. Well, since I am a freelancer, I have a certain amount of flexibility. So often when I have business to attend to in San Francisco, I'll take a wide swing over to the western side of the city and spend the rest of the day at the Sutro Library (one of the richest sources of genealogical data to be found on the west coast). I'll often be the youngest person in the film reader section by a good thirty years!

I had started focusing more on my mother's side of the family, simply because there was better documentation (going back to the 1600s and beyond). However lately I have been captivated by my father's side, and have traced roots back to Minnesota and New York in the early 19th century.

So here, in no particular order, I will list some of the interesting items that my research has yielded to date:

• I have long prided myself on being a native Californian. I have also long been a fan of the San Francisco 49ers football team. What I had never known was that I am actually a descendent of a 49er! My great-great grandfather Hans Butenop sailed round the southern tip of South America and entered San Francisco bay in August of 1849...the height of the California Gold Rush. However, he never went to the goldfields. Instead, he opened a grocery/liquor store in San Francisco, and did some grubstaking for the miners who were going inland to search for gold. Hans had originally come over from Prussia (modern day northern Germany) a few years earlier, and opened a hotel in New York with his brother. It was with the money he got by selling his interest in the hotel that he purchased the store in California.


• The site that Hans chose for his grocery store (with its upstairs living space) turned out to be interesting: 625 Pacific Street. I'm sure the neighborhood was fine when he first got there, but later he found himself to be smack dab in the heart of the Barbary Coast. Known for its saloons, bordellos, opium dens, and just all-around debauched nature, this became a sore point with Han's wife, and they later moved a few blocks away to a house on Filbert Street. I guess it was decided that the Barbary Coast was not a great place to raise two daughters (one of whom being my great grandmother Minnie).


• Hans mostly went by the name of Henry when he got settled in the United States. His son Henry Jr had a brief and troubled life. He married quite young, but got into financial troubles while in his twenties. After losing his wife and his job, he tragically ended his life by jumping off Meigg's wharf (present day site of Fishermans' Wharf) in 1888.


• My great grandmother Minnie is my hero. She was an accomplished artist (I actually have one of her paintings), which was rare for a woman of the late 19th century. It is from her that I attribute my own artistic tendencies. She married Harry Rulison in 1890. He died of tuberculosis in 1899, and she remained in San Francisco with their two daughters (including my grandmother Claire). Then in 1906, the great earthquake and fire destroyed the city. (The painting I have was pulled down from the wall of their house, rolled up, and stacked out in the street by the firemen--just before they dynamited their house.) She and the girls moved across the bay to Oakland, but she passed away the following year. My grandmother and her sister then went to Reno to live with their grandparents.


• Another branch of the Rulison family also ended up in San Francisco, though by then their branch had altered the name to Rulofson. (This was the branch of the family whose patriarch chose to fight on the wrong side of the American Revolutionary War. He fought for the British, and at the end of the war had to forfeit his land holdings in New Jersey, and took exile in the British-held region of Newfoundland. The family began coming back down to the United States a couple of generations later.) William Rulofson lived in San Francisco, and was a prominent photographer and pioneer in the early photographic artform of daguerreotypy. The studio of Bradley & Rulofson was famous for their portraiture work, and any history books covering 19th century Califonia are likely to have a few photos that were taken by William (my third cousin five times removed).
  In 1878, William died when he fell off the roof of his four story studio. Among the personal effects in his pockets there was found to be a locket with a portrait of a man who someone alertly recognized as Edward Rulloff. It turns out the Edward was hanged a few years earlier, having been found guilty of several murders (including those of his wife and infant daughter) in the New York area. Because William was a member of proper society, he kept his relation a close-kept secret...and nobody had any idea that Edward Rulloff was his oldest brother.


• Many of the Rulisons in our branch of the family tree went into the field of dentistry. This includes my great-great aunt Helen Rulison Shipley, who was the first woman to practice dentistry in the state of Nevada .


• It turns out that Henry Enoch was my ggggg-Grandfather. He built a fort on his land in Virginia, which later had a role in the French-Indian War of the mid 1700s. The surveying of his land prior to the building of the fort was conducted by a young man who would later change careers. His name? George Washington.


• On my father's side, it turns out we hailed from Montana, Minnesota, and on up into Canada. In fact, my GGG-grandfather (also named John Atkinson) was one of the founders of the community of Cottage Grove, Minnesota (on the Mississipi River, just downstream of Minneapolis). Here is a link to the Atkinson Cemetery, which he established in the mid 19th century. There is also a picture there of my GGG-grandmother's grave marker on there.


• My grandfather and namesake John Norris Atkinson was shown to have been a student at the Minnesota State School at Red Wing in 1900. Oops...it turns out that is a reform school. I've recently been doing some digging to find out what the story is there. (It could be rather minor--they tended to send kids to reform school back then even if they were just being "incorrigible".)

So it has been an interesting endeavor to try to unlock the secrets of the past. Sometimes exciting, sometimes dull, sometimes frustrating, and sometimes heartbreaking. But almost always fascinating!

I take a great deal of pride in knowing that my family was so involved in the early days of San Francisco, which has always been one of my favorite cities in the world (even before I had found out that so many of my ancestors lived there). However, that also guarantees that there will always be a fair amount of frustration in my searches, because the information is so scarce. You see, all of the early city records were stored in the Hall of Records, which was right next door to the old San Francisco City Hall. I use past tense because in 1906 the great earthquake badly damaged both buildings. A day after the quake, the huge fire that followed swept through that area. They say that the fire in the Hall of Records smoldered for several days, and there was not a thing they could do about it. All those land deeds, marriage licenses, birth and death certificates--all turned to ash. So most everything I know has had to come from the newspapers of the time, which can be pretty hit&miss.

But it sure is fun!!!

Having a blast in Hawaii!

Well, we're not physically in Hawaii, but mentally. You see, we've been going through a "Hawaii Five-O" binge for the past two weeks or so. Just last month, Viacom released the first season on DVD as a seven disc boxed set. I had been watching the Viacom web site for the past several years...and followed the string of promised release dates. They kept slipping the release, leaving us H5O fans to wonder "why the holdout?"

Yet somehow, they managed to surprise me. I had not heard of the release, and I just happened to see it on the shelf one day when I was at the store shopping for something else. Needless to say, I just about fainted! It was the last one on the shelf, and I grabbed it. We have been watching around two episodes a day ever since. Sadly, that means there are only three eps left to season one, and the last I heard of a release date for season two has been mid summer 2007. So I guess we'll have to watch them again! (Meanwhile, we can also watch the "Get Smart" season one set--another awesome show from the 60s)

H5O was a great series. I mean sure--some of it is way over the top, McGarrett's hair and fashions were sometimes eyebrow-raising, the plots were often moralistic, etc. However, it was still a wonderful series, and we are so grateful to Viacom for finally putting it out. For us, it's like comfort food. It's like the entertainment equivalent of Macaroni & Cheese. We both grew up watching the show. I have very fond memories of watching it with my mom & dad during the 70s (they never missed an episode).

So BOOK'EM, DANNO!!!

p.s. And now I am never going to be able to get that theme song out of my head.
Da-da-da-da de-daaaaa...

The Authoress is in the house!

Mary has just had her book project approved, and has just inked the contract. So now she will officially begin work on writing a book about the history of the Nut Tree airport for Arcadia Books!

This looks like it will be a fun project. There are a lot of interesting personalities among the men and women whose passion is flying and whose home base is Nut Tree. I have seen some of the photographs, and they are stunning!

She first got the idea for the book the day we went out there to watch the attempted airlift of a Gooney-Bird. I know--that sounds silly. The Gooney-Bird is the nickname for the WWII cargo plane designated as the C-47. One had been restored out at the Nut Tree airport and was being donated by her owner to the Travis AFB aeronautical museum, some twelve miles away. Since the plane could not fly under her own power, they decided to give the old girl one last journey "on the wing", so they attempted to airlift her out to the AFB using a Chinook CH-47 helicopter. (I posted a video of the attempt on YouTube here.)

Alas, the first attempt was unsuccessful, but the second time did the trick. It was quite a sight to behold!

While we were out at the airport, we started looking at the collection of vintage planes, and Mary got to talking with the group of pilots who had gathered in one of the hangars, and that's where she became aware of this really cool group of flying enthusiasts. And now she is going to tell their story! I'm really looking forward to reading about this place.

Clickety-clickety-clickety...

I've got typewriters on the brain! Really old ones, like from the 1920s. Really gorgeous old ones, like this one.

It is for a work project. Yes, I know this blog is supposed to be for non work stuff, but I am really fascinated with these typewriters.

You see, I learned to type on an antique, manual Royal typewriter that my mother had. I would say it was circa 1940s. (Hey, I'm not that old! It was old when I started using it.) I took typing in high school, and they had us using manual typewriters. There is just something about having to hit those keys to create the mechanical process of striking an inky ribbon and imprinting it on paper. That's when you really feel like a wordsmith--like hammering words into sentences over an anvil and a bed of stoked coals...

Okay, so it wasn't quite that romantic. I remember being very excited when my mom finally got an electric. I think it was a surplus model; like one of the first generation of electrics. She bought it cheap from work when they upgraded to newer, lighter models. (She worked in accounting for the State of California, at the Department of Transportation...what would eventually become CalTrans.) This baby weighed a ton! But it sure seemed like luxury to be able to type without having to pound the keyboard into submission.

Later on she bought a very small, electronic typewriter. But by that time I was already typing on computer keyboards. Amazing how much things have changed in the way of typing.

So anyway, I need to create some graphics that show words being typed on a page, and there needs to be an old typewriter from the 20's as the instrument of choice. So I am now faced with the dilemma that I often find myself faced with--whether to go 3D or 2D. If I go 3D, that means I spend the next day with my 3D software building an antique typewriter. If I go 2D, that means I make a bunch of flat pieces and try to build a typewriter in After Effects.

I am a big After Effects (AE) fiend. It's what I use for 90% of the motion graphics I create for clients. I love it, and I love it's "3D" capabilities. But one must acknowledge the limitations therein. You see, AE does 3D, but it is kind of a 2D cheat. I sometimes call it 2.5D. You can put things together in 3D, but without the benefit of curved surfaces. It is like playing around with postcards. You can rotate your artwork all over the place, but it has no thickness--it is always completely flat. So if you want to have a cylindrical object (say, as in, a typewriter platen), you would have to construct it out of a bunch of flat strips arranged in a circular manner. Can be quite tedious, as you might imagine.

I think I am leaning towards doing it in AE anyway. As much as I would love to spend a day building a really cool model of an old typewriter, I don't think I can spare the time. Also, the look I want is kind of sketchy, so that the whole scene looks like a part of a painting or drawing. Imagery coming out of 3D software tends to look too clean and crisp. (There are some 3D packages that create the more sketchy look, or "Non Photorealistic Rendering, or NPR". I have long been looking at the different outputs that the different programs can achieve, and it looks promising. Unfortunately, the purchase of a $2,000 software license is not something I can take on just now.) So I think AE is the way to go.

Okay...enough shop talk. I've got a typewriter to build!

Woodplaying (formerly known as Woodworking)

Here's one of my recent hobbies--woodworking. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say "recently re-activated" hobbies. I have enjoyed working with wood and designing little furniture items since I was a kid. However, this is the first time I have really had a chance to get into it.
The project I chose to get back into it with? A video rack. Not just any video rack, but a double-wide, take-up-the-whole living room kind of video rack. Thing is, my wife and I are movie nuts, and we have stacks and stacks of DVDs and videos. So I set out to make as big a rack as I could. I quickly found myself limited by the length of dowels (which I had planned to use as tape shelves), which come in 48" lengths. So I sketched it out--the rack was going to be 50 inches wide, with one center support for extra support. This was going to mark the first time I had ever built a piece of furniture bigger than myself!

Now it had been a few years since I'd last attempted anything. And it had been many many years since I had attempted any joinery. That's where you create mitered corners, and fasten them together with nails, screws, and/or glue. There are all kinds of joins one can use, each of varying difficulty to cut, and all of varying strength. The one unifying factor they all share is that I suck at them all. I've never been real good at joinery.

Then I started reading up on biscuit joinery. It looked a little more forgiving for those of us who are router-challenged. So I bought a Ryobi biscuit jointer saw, and proceeded to give it a try. First I joined a few scraps of wood together. Then I set out to make a big box. It's a cool box, with a hinged lid, inner compartments for storage, and strong enough for me to stand on (very important, since I am fairly average in height, but my workbench was built by a previous occupant of this house, and the dude must have been a pro basketball player).

I quickly got the hang of working with biscuits, and emboldened by my box building, I set onto the task of building the video rack.

The build took about five weeks, consisting mostly of evenings. It went pretty well, with a few slips and mishaps along the way. The worst part was waiting through a couple of weeks rain, wind, and super cold so that I could paint the thing. (Perhaps starting on such a project in November was not the smartest move.) I had originally planned on spray painting, but the wind never let up--so I switched to brush. Oh, and those dowels. It was like herding cats. I don't want to try anything with so many dowels for a while. But in the end, I ended up with a pretty sweet rack.

That was done around the end of 2006, after which I decided to take a break for a while. Now I've been getting the urge to build again, and the next project is my desk organizer. Here's a diagram of it:

So now I am in the initial cutting phase of that. I am trying to work with stains and finishes for this one, attempting to match my desk's finish. That is turning out to be a challenge. (Scotty, we need more RED!!!)

Both the rack and the organizer are designs I came up with. I really enjoy designing furniture. It uses all my 3D talents, but the end result is something you can pick up and use, as opposed to just being some cool imagery on a video screen. Not that I have anything against the latter, but every now and then it feels good to "get tactile".

I just wish I had made better choices in high school. I had a choice of several types of industrial arts classes. I could have taken metalworking and woodworking, but I took autoshop instead. Of the three, I probably took the worst one. You see, between the time I took that class and the present day, the automotive industry made a radical shift--the complexity of automobile engines went through the roof. In autoshop, I learned the basics using 8HP lawnmower engines. I studied distributors, camshafts, and carburetors. Now everything is electronic systems and fuel injection. As a result, I open up the hood of my car, and I'm helpless. If something goes wrong, I'm taking it to the dealership.

Woodworking, on the other hand, is pretty much the same now as it was back in high school. A miter cut is still a miter cut. A board is still a board. I wish I had taken woodworking all those years ago; I wouldn't have to be learning and re-learning all this stuff now. I might have been able to knock-off dovetail joins effortlessly. Instead, bring on the biscuits! Oh well, at least it is fun trying out new things!

Of course, all of this is in preparation for the projects that I have been mulling over for almost ten years: The Coffee Table. I am hoping to make that happen sometime in 2007, but it's goig to be a complex build. It's a pretty cool design though...it bloody well should be, since I've been sketching it out for nearly a decade!

Format adjustment

Oof! I had to do a little tweaking to the format on this blog. The first one I chose looked okay in the preview, but once I published it looked VERY purple and pink. So I added some artwork from Vacaville's glorious past (and soon to be present...again), the Nut Tree.

Greetings from Vacaville!

This is another experiment. I had started a blog under the Splinesmith name, as it was to be a more professionally-oriented scree. Then I became concerned that since my clients would be able to read it, I felt I had to censure whatever I wrote regarding work. And seeing as I am a certifiable workaholic, if I can't write freely about work I wouldn't have much to write about!
Sure enough, I managed three posts in a year and a half.

So now I am going to try something different. This is going to be outside the work realm (at least not directly), and more concerned with life in general. It will be more for the benefit of friends and family who are "just curious what John's been up to lately." This way, it can serve as my memoirs for later years, so that I can read back through it and say "gee, I wasted a large portion of my life writing stuff in that blog." :)

In here I will put tidbits of philosophy, random acts of Artness, observations, humor, and probably a lot of rambling on about my various interests.

So let the blogging begin!