so i'm in phoenix today for a training that i am helping with. when i first walked in a feint smell reminded me of Tap Plastics -- a store that sells custom cut plastic materials.

the hotel is having it's pool repainted, and a heavy air full of plastic has settled into the hotel. the paint must be basically plastic waterproof and very toxic. walking outside around the pool leaves one light headed and faintly nauseous. the guys painting are not even wearing masks. they probably get used to it.

it's going to be a hellish couple days if the smell keeps up. we're not all different from the frogs stuck in heated water who don't notice they are being boiled.

clear and sharp

today was the penultimate fall day. the sky as blue as it gets, the air chilly and crisp so that everything seems more defined, as if god had just invented three dimensions and one was experiencing it for the first time. sitting in the sun though it was not cold, one could bask in its lovely heat, and if there were a patch of dry grass around you might pass into a blissful slumber, and dream of warm water, and tropical islands.

in another note:
how's this for a cloud

movie review: quicks the word and sharp's the action, boys

master and commander was in short the best Star Trek movie there ever was. huh? you ask. Well not only was the Star Trek partially based on the Hornblower series, the movie plot fits pretty well to a Star Trek movie plot: an outmatched, outgunned crew winning the day based on guile and pluckiness, but only after near and utter distaster. There's even a doctor-captain relationship and of course lots of questions of loyalty and duty. It's all about leadership.

The enemy captain is a little less of a villain though and there is an undertone ( however slight ) that this more about pride and lust for battle than it is Just Cause.

The nice surprise is the trip to the Galapagos Islands and a fanciful notion that the Doctor, a naturalist on the side, is near on the cusp of Evolutionary thoughts as Darwin, had he but a moment longer on the islands.

Anyway, it's a stirring, if a perhaps overly gorey (several graphic operations being performed, not to mention all the hacky slashy bits), depiction of the 18th and 19th century high seas.