I stayed up way too late tonight. I am tired, but I needed to write in my blog before I hit the hay. Today was not a big bust on productivity even though it seemed to start out that way. I went to bed at a decent hour the night before, about midnight. However, I managed to sleep until 11:00 a.m., and then I stayed in bed surfing on the computer for another two hours. Usually when I surf the net first thing when I wake up, I am reading design blogs, the opinion pages on the online newspapers, or looking up things on wikipedia.Today, there was a really interesting article in the New York Times about Ikea's decision to switch typefaces in their print catalog. They had been using Futura, a very nice choice, and decided to switch to Verdana. Most of the response from design types was that this was a crazy choice. I have to say that I do think that the typeface is unfortunate, especially since Verdana was designed primarily for a computer screen, but some of the people objecting come off sounding like real art snobs. I saw similar things happen in my writing classes when I was getting my English major. Some felt that grammar served the needs of creativity first, while others, a majority of others it should be said, felt passionately that the rules shouldn't be broken, ever. They might later claim that a true artist can break rules whenever they felt like it, but in practicality, they heap scorn on the unknown innovators, good and bad alike.
I woke up from a dream where I was interviewing a cowboy named Cole at a Western themed restaurant. We were at a corner booth discussing the details of the movie and stunts that needed to be shot. There was a scene in which a cowboy leaps into a bullring, but when it was filmed, the stuntman injured his back, so we had to have a meeting to discuss how to avoid that kind of thing from ever happening again. There was much more to this dream, but I could only remember the last few scenes of it.
The productive part of my day came in the afternoon. Remember yesterday when I said that I wanted to take pictures? Well, as you can see from this post, I did it. I drove to Baskett Slough after feeding myself some lunch and shopping for razors at Walmart. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing, and the deciding factor was my noting that the storm clouds were beginning to clear up a little so the rain had stopped. I knew that Baskett Slough would be closing for the winter season, so I wanted to see it before that happened.
I surprised a bunch of Egrets at the little pond where they congregate. They moved from the side of the pond where I had parked my car towards the farther end to where it was harder to see them. They moved rather gracefully, and for the most part were quiet, except for a guttural honking noise they made once or twice. An elderly man and what I assume was his middle-aged son stopped near my car and used their binoculars to look at "the pelicans." I am not a bird person, but I am pretty sure pelicans are something else all together. Shortly after they arrived, I got back in my car and drove over to the hiking trail. The hike was nice, but the fact that I was out of shape was soon brought home to me as I trudged up the hill. Fortunately, there was bench halfway up that provided me when a few minutes rest so I could catch my breath and move on towards the viewing stand at the summit. I took many pictures as I went along, including a few of myself that only seemed to show me how old I was looking these days. My hair is much more thinner than I want it to be, and there are noticeable wrinkles around my eyes as I squint in the sun. Despite all of this, I enjoyed my hike. I should do things like that more often so my body doesn't have the terrible reaction it did.
I made it back home around 4:00 p.m. There was a health survey in the mail for me from a college doing a statewide study. I indicated that except in the rare instance, I don't get any healthcare, primarily because I cannot afford it and don't have health insurance. The mail will pick up my responses on Tuesday since the mailperson won't show up again until then.
For the rest of the night, I spent my time watching television, adventuring in the digital world of azeroth, and later, when there was nothing on television that I cared to watch, I listened to the radio. I saw the new remake of the "Get Smart" movie that, although mostly dumb, I found it a bit entertaining.
After I post this blog entry, I will read for a few minutes in bed before falling to sleep. I'd still reading the Paula Scher design book, "Make it Bigger." I'm enjoying it tremendously, and at some point on this blog, I should write about what I thought of it and why I liked it. Hopefully, I will not sleep in tomorrow morning for as long as I did today. That is a bad habit that will definitely have to be broken by the time school starts.