Ramblings from a painter

Kabul Conference

2012-01-27T03:30:00.001-05:00

Winter has definitely settled over Kandahar. It's been cold, windy, sometimes rainy, and occasionally snowy. The other day, soldiers were taking pictures of each other over at the Boardwalk, which had a light dusting of very slippery snow. I may regret saying this in about six months, when the temperatures are well over 100, but I could do with some warmer weather.

I was getting a bit too shaggy last week, so I headed over to the Boardwalk to get a haircut. I was hoping to get the sexy blonde Russian girl, but instead got the chubby Uzbek guy. Oh, well, with my glasses off, I can't see, anyway, and the guy gave me a better haircut than the girl did, so I'm happy.

There was a dance tune that came out about 1990, that had a woman hollering "everybody DANCE now" ... remember that one? Yeah. Well, this barbershop is staffed by Russians, so they were playing Russian music, and one of the tunes was a remake of "everybody dance now". Only it sounded like it was cut by a platoon of Russian soldiers, who had all the rhythm and soul of a rhinoceros on vodka. Heavily-accented Russian guys would chant "everybody dance now" with a beat like stamping around in the snow in heavy boots. Then one of 'em would go into a drugged-out Russian rap. Like a nightmare that wouldn't end. I could hardly keep myself from laughing the whole time it was playing.

A couple of days ago, two of us went up to Kabul for a conference, along with several military staff guys. We'd asked for a flight in the afternoon, so we could get some work done here, then fly up, settle in, and attend the conference the next day. Nope. Military Air is a logic unto themselves. Instead of an afternoon flight, we had to show up at 4:30 am for a 6:30 am flight. Ugh! I like my beauty rest, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Let me tell you, a flight line at 6 am on a cold winter morning, with a stiff wind blowing across the field, is no fun. But our flight left more or less on time and the plane warmed up quickly. We flew in a C-27, which is a new addition to our inventory and a nice little cargo plane. Unlike the bigger C-130, there's plenty of room for passengers to stretch their legs.

We arrived in Kabul in mid-morning and quickly got settled into our plush 5-star accommodations at the NATO base at the airport. This turned out to be a tent with a dozen bunk beds built out of 2x4's and old wooden pallets, with the heater set on "fry" and the bathroom in a converted container about 50 yards away. A couple of us then went exploring, which didn't take long, and we found ways to keep ourselves sorta busy and entertained for the rest of the day. That evening, our whole group got together and went over to what turned out to be a really good Thai restaurant on the base. Yes, I said "really good". Definitely the surprise of the trip.

The conference went pretty well. We made some good contacts, especially with the Marines from Helmand Province next door, and swapped a lot of ideas. The Marines are doing some things that we could/should do, and we're doing some things that they should be doing, so we had some good discussions. As usual in a conference, there were a couple of speakers that I just wanted to hit the "Delete" button on, but that's to be expected.

Coming home worked out pretty well. Military Air told us to be at the terminal at 7 pm for an 8:30 flight and the plane showed up an hour early. I was back in my own little room in Kandahar by 10 pm.

So now it's back to the office so I can catch up on emails, write a trip report, and find out what has hit the fan. I've been out of the office for two days, so I know something did!

A Rather Blah Week

2012-01-20T11:51:00.000-05:00

When one day is pretty much like the previous one, it makes it hard to find something interesting to write about. My big thing lately has been health issues. I've had four colds since the middle of November. Four very different colds, so they're not the same bug. It settles in, I feel like crap for a week or so, have a few days where things are normal, and then the Dreaded Post-Nasal Drip starts again.

I felt so bad the other day that I went over to the clinic, convinced that something more insidious was at work. (I can be a bit of a hypochondriac sometimes, and when I'm not feeling well, I'm a real wuss). The docs checked me out and gravely informed me that it was "viral". Translation: it's just a cold, you twit. But they loaded me up with meds not available in the PX and I feel better today.

I'm not the only one having troubles. Everybody, it seems, has had at least one cold, and quite a few have had ongoing sniffles or congestion. We think it's due to the air here at KAF. It's really dirty, loaded with the talcum-powder-like "moon dust" so prevalent in Afghanistan, as well as gravel dust, diesel exhaust, smoke from the incinerators, particles from the poop ponds, and lots of other really nasty sources. One guy that I was talking with yesterday felt fine during several weeks out of the country, but within two days of being back at KAF, he was fighting a sore throat. Those who have been in Iraq think that the air is generally dirtier here. I believe it.

Things at work have been ... well, unremarkable. What's there to say? I go through a hundred or so emails a day. I talk with State Department guys and military guys about this or that operation. I research an answer to a particularly vexing question. Then I go answer a bunch of emails based on the research and discussions with the state or military guys. I go to the DFAC. Periodically I go to the gym. Once a week I'll do my laundry. Pretty exciting stuff, huh? And you thought I was riding around in helicopters and MRAPs all the time, meeting Afghan government officials, and drinking chai with Taliban! No, reality is much more mundane.

But at it's core, it's still a pretty rewarding experience. I'm playing my small role in trying to make this place functional. Sometimes, I'm just trying to prevent yet another screwup by somebody who either doesn't know better or (worse) doesn't care. But it's all striving toward a goal that really needs to be met. Will we? Don't know. But I'm doing what I can. Despite all these damn colds.

Getting In The Groove Again

2012-01-13T00:14:00.001-05:00

Riding in the C-27

Graphite on paper, 5"x7"

I'm back in Kandahar again. My trip was pretty uneventful, just long (14 hours from Dulles to Dubai alone). Fortunately, I had a stopover in Dubai and got a room in a pretty swanky hotel. It had a "Belgian Cafe" on the terrace outside, with really good food and outstanding draft beer. I really enjoyed myself - thank you, American taxpayers. Up early the next morning and over to the airport, where an amazingly long line snaked away from the ticket desk. We're all getting on the flight to Kandahar? As it turned out, no. They'd over-booked the flight and a number of people were bumped to at least the next day. Well, if you gotta get bumped, Dubai's not a bad place to spend the time. Fortunately, my name was on the manifest. We made it to Kandahar more or less on time. After processing through the passenger terminal, I walked the 100 yards to our office compound and back to my little room. "Home" again.

Since then, it's been a game of catch-up. Catch-up on over 1300 emails (note: the "Delete" button is your friend). Catch-up on internal discussions that don't make it into emails. Catch-up on the gossip. After a week, I think I'm pretty much back to speed. Not that much has fundamentally changed, but the crises of three weeks ago are not the crises of today. Well, one is, and it's a big one, but I have a feeling that it's going to be resolved in the next couple of days.

Two days ago, I went on a quick trip to Uruzgan. No, this isn't a place from a J.R.R. Tolkien novel (..."darkest Uruzgan, beyond which Mordor lies ..."). It's the province north of Kandahar. We needed to have some discussions with the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) up there, so we flew up in a C-27 in the morning and back in the afternoon. I took along my sketchbook and did a couple of drawings during the short flights, one of which is posted above.

Yesterday, we had a reminder that this is still a challenging area. The district governor of Panjwai, which is just to the west of Kandahar City, was killed by a suicide bomber. The blast also killed the governor's two young sons and two police bodyguards, and wounded a number of others. I had never met the man, but others in my office had worked closely with him. He was pretty good at his job, which is why the Taliban targeted him. You can read more about the incident here. Another attack the previous day targeted BG Raziq, the Chief of Police of Kandahar Province and one of the most powerful men in southern Afghanistan. Fortunately, the only one who was killed in that blast was the teenage suicide bomber. We've made a lot of gains, but the insurgents can still reach out and touch someone when they really want to.

So it's back to work. Gotta do what I can to piss off some insurgents.

Heading Back to the Dustbowl

2012-01-05T14:56:00.000-05:00

My R&R is over. I'm sitting here at the coffee shop at the Asheville airport, waiting to start the long trip back to Afghanistan. It's been a great two weeks at home, even though I had a cold for most of it (thank you, Lufthansa). It's been an expensive two weeks, too: a top and a pair of seat covers for the truck, four new tires for the Volvo, two new pairs of glasses for me, and a new painting by our artist friend Genie Maples, plus two visits to the dentist and another to the optometrist. But there were plenty of good times, too. Lots of time with Janis. Dinners with friends. Long walks with the dogs. Kicked back on the couch, watching some good movies (Margin Call especially). Videochats with the grandson. Life's been good.

Now it's time to get back to work. I'll arrive in Kandahar on Saturday sometime (weather permitting; see previous post for what can go wrong). I'll need to hit the ground running as there are several hot items that'll be hitting their stride just after my return. And I know there are plenty of other things that have cropped up in the past two weeks to throw our schedule into turmoil. But that's life on the front lines.

So for now, I'll just sit here and enjoy some quiet time. Next post will be from Kandahar!

And Now for a Bit of R&R

2011-12-30T08:57:00.001-05:00

I'm at home now on an R&R break. It's been a great time to do pretty much nothing. Just being at home with my wife, dogs, and friends is enough. Maybe I'm getting to be an old fart (okay, I already am an old fart), but I don't need to go traipsing off around the world, looking for exciting places to go and things to do. No, thanks; Kandahar is exciting enough for me. I just want some normality now.

Getting home was not easy. I was supposed to leave on Wednesday, Dec 21, on a flight from Kandahar to Dubai, then on to the US. But a dust storm rolled in on Tuesday, and by Wednesday morning it lay thick over all of southern Afghanistan. Visibility was down to 400-600 meters, well below the 800 meters minimum for the airline to land to pick us up. They kept pushing the arrival time back, hoping that it would clear just enough to get the plane on the ground. It was cold, too: sub-zero (Fahrenheit), with ice on the ground. We milled around all morning, first outside in the freezing cold, then inside an unheated terminal, hoping against hope that the skies would clear a bit, but they didn't. Finally, at around 4:30, they cancelled the flight.

Now we had a couple hundred people with broken flight connections. Right at the beginning of the Christmas rush. And all the flights out of Kandahar for several days were overbooked already. Not a good scenario. I got on the phone with our travel agents in Kabul. These guys worked miracles and quickly got me rescheduled on a flight out of Dubai 24 hours later. The flight from Kandahar was a different issue: the airline was trying to get a second airplane in to get everybody to Dubai, but that was still in the works.

Thursday morning, we woke to a slightly thinner, but still present, dust storm. Then we discovered that the airline could not get a second airplane in, due to some issues with the airport and (presumably) Afghan government. This was a BIG uh-oh. One of my co-workers suggested that I try getting to Kabul on an embassy-run airplane and then flying to Dubai on an airline. I made some calls and discovered that (a) an Embassy flight was leaving in about a half hour and (b) the miracle-workers in Kabul could indeed get me on a flight from there to Dubai. I grabbed my backpack, found the duty driver, and made it to the flight line with minutes to spare. On the flight to Kabul, I could see just how thick and extensive the dust cloud was: it lay like a thick fog over the ground, making any features such as runways completely invisible, and it extended for miles.

Once in Kabul, I was able to get over to the commercial terminal, again with minutes to spare, and got checked in. Then it was on to Dubai, a 2 1/2 hour flight. I couldn't believe it: I was finally on my way! After landing and going through the passport control, I had a couple of hours to kill. Dubai is a very modern city, bustling and active, with a huge expatriate presence. Based on some recommendations, I went to the Irish Village and had my first really good meal in nearly three months, along with a fabulous draft beer. Heaven!

Back to the airport later and onto Lufthansa for a flight to Frankfurt. I had been happy with this, thinking that it would be good to break up the flight into two legs vice one long 14-hour marathon. As it turned out, not so. Lufthansa was fine, a bit better than United but nothing like, say, Air France. The problem was Frankfurt. I've been through this airport in years past, but this time, it was ridiculous. Security is over-the-top: you have to go through security to get away from your gate, and go through it again to get to your next gate. "Slow" is the operative word here. Worse, Frankfurt is a maze without useful guidance. If the flight you're looking for is Lufthansa, then there are signs everywhere telling you where to go. If you're looking for another airline (and almost every international airline in the world is in Frankfurt), then you're out of luck. No signs. I finally stumbled over an information desk with a grumpy soul who pointed me in the right direction. Despite a two-hour layover, I got to my gate about 15 minutes before boarding time. My advice is to stay the hell away from Frankfurt.

After that, though, it was smooth sailing. I was on United to Chicago, which was a piece of cake after Frankfurt. Then the final short flight to Asheville. Janis and the dogs were waiting for me in the terminal. I was home, 42 hours after leaving Kandahar. And I'd picked up a cold along the way.

So now I'm sitting here in my favorite chair. My cold is pretty much gone (not quite). Janis and the dogs are more or less used to me being here by now. I've visited with some friends, taken care of some business, and had a wonderfully quiet Christmas. Life is good.

I head back to Afghanistan next week. There are things cooking that I need to work on. But for now, I'm just enjoying being at home.

Trying to Go on R&R

2011-12-21T13:02:00.000-05:00

I got up this morning, grabbed my backpack, and headed for the air terminal here at Kandahar Air Field, intending to go home on R&R. It didn't quite work out that way. The reason? Dust.

Yesterday, we had a big dust cloud move in early in the day. It looked like fog - a gritty whitish-gray mass that settled over the base and gradually got more dense as the day went on. This morning, it was still there. Our group of traveller wanna-be's trooped over to the KAF airfield at 8 am to get checked in for the flight. It was cold - there was ice on the ground outside the terminal, and for some reason that only makes sense to the military, we were not allowed to go inside for over two hours. (For all of you who gripe about United Airlines' crappy treatment of prisoners - er, customers, at least they let you stand around inside a warm terminal while they muck up your flight). Eventually, we got inside and discovered that there wasn't really any heat inside, either, so it didn't make a lot of difference where we were kept.

But as we stood around shivering, I watched the dust cloud get thicker and thicker. Our plane was delayed, then delayed again, in the hopes that the air would start to clear. No luck. Somebody explained that planes have to have a minimum of 800 meters visibility to land. Our visibility ranged between 400-600 meters. In other words, about a quarter of a mile, give or take.

Finally, at about 4:30, they gave up and cancelled the flight. A group of four of us hightailed it over to our office compound and got on the phone to our travel office. Those guys worked miracles revising our tickets. I'm pretty happy with mine: they have me flying on Lufthansa tomorrow, which is much better than United, and it breaks my long overseas flight up into two sections. Now if they can just get me an aisle seat ...

Those tickets still depend on tomorrow's weather. I hear that it's supposed to be a bit clearer. The air service (a charter group) is arranging to fly two planes in tomorrow to fly out both today's and tomorrow's passengers. A good thing, since both flights were over-booked anyway.

So. With a little luck, at this time tomorrow I should be in Dubai, waiting to board a flight that will take me home. I'm ready!

Three Days in Maiwand

2011-12-16T03:06:00.001-05:00

Two Elders

Graphite on paper, 9"x12"

Three Elders

Graphite on paper, 9"x12"

The Listener

Graphite on paper, 9"x10"

Senior Leader

Graphite on paper, 9"x9"

I spent three days earlier this week in the district of Maiwand. Maiwand is to the west of Kandahar City, on the border with Helmand Province. It's an agricultural area with virtually no other types of industries. Maiwand, along with neighboring district of Zhari on one side and the province of Helmand on the other, is the original homeland of the Taliban. They still control the territory. Afghan government influence is minimal but growing. Slowly.

During this visit, I was in several meetings with the district governor, chief of police, and other officials. I also sat in on the District Development Assembly meeting. This is a shura (a meeting of the elders) to discuss what they want to do to develop their district. About 30 Maiwand elders were in attendance from various parts of the district. I was a back-bencher, there to observe proceedings. What better way for an artist to observe than by sketching? So I took along my drawing pad and pencil, sat against the wall, and sketched away. The four drawings above are the result.

As I've said before, Afghans have the most amazing features and are wonderful subjects for an artist. They're very different from Western norms, very expressive, with different ways of dressing. I could spend all day, every day, drawing and painting these guys. Great fun. My experience as a courtroom artist really helped here, as nobody sat still.

The meeting itself? Chaos. There was much in the way of passionate speech about this and that, people pushing agendas, arguments and counter-arguments, debate, voting, more passion, signing of papers, scheduling of follow-on meetings, and so on. Sometimes I'd look at the American officer sitting next to me and we'd just shake our heads and laugh. You can't make this stuff up. It was great entertainment. As effective government, well, I don't know. The district governor is still establishing himself (he's only been on the job for a month and is not from the district), so what he does with this group, and others, remains to be seen.

When not in meetings with the Afghans, I spent time with my primary contact, Carlos. He's been there almost a year and is extremely well-versed in local governance and politics. I was listening to the discussion in the shura while sketching, for example, and generally followed what was going on, but Carlos caught a lot of subtleties that I missed entirely. Sometimes the fact that a certain individual says something, or doesn't say something, is vitally important. As the man said, all politics is local, especially here.

I was also learning a bit about life on a Contingency Operating Base, or COB. COBs are small bases with only a couple hundred people total. This one is right on the edge of the town of Hutal - you can stand on the walls, throw a rock, and hit someone in the bazaar. (Note: this is not recommended!) Life on a COB is very spartan: tents, portajohns, gravel, limited supplies of just about everything, crappy communications links, a fairly well-equipped gym, and more MRAPs than you ever thought existed. But it also fosters an esprit de corps since everybody's in the same boat. You share what you have and help your buddy out. Tomorrow, you're going to need your buddy's help.

All in all, a very productive visit for me and, hopefully, for Carlos and the rest of the Maiwand team. I'm looking forward to working with them throughout the rest of my time in Afghanistan.

Another Trip to Spin Boldak

2011-12-11T00:45:00.001-05:00

I made another trip to Spin Boldak earlier this week. Spin Boldak is the district in Kandahar Province (like a county in a state) that's on the border with Pakistan. It has one of the two major border crossings that ISAF uses as a supply route. Or it did until two weeks ago, when Pakistan closed the border to ISAF traffic after the shooting incident. But this trip had nothing to do with the border crossing. Instead, my boss wanted to talk with the key locals about the future.

His message was pretty clear: we're drawing down. We're not leaving Afghanistan, but within three years, there will be a very small presence in Kandahar Province. We're not doing lots of projects anymore, and we're not going to be a "shadow government". Instead, they needed to work with the government structure to do the things that governments are supposed to do: build and maintain roads, provide schooling, provide a health care system, lay the groundwork for private-sector economic growth, and so on. They need to get their government working now, while ISAF is here to back them up. They can't wait until we're gone.

How did it go over? Hard to say. They certainly listened. I saw heads nodding at important points. Now to see what they do.

I was a back-bencher during most of this. When you're with the Big Dog, he's the one who does the talking, particularly when we're talking about the big strategic picture. I'll get my chance to talk with some of them later, when we're talking about specific "how to" points.

So, of course, I did some sketching when I could. I swear, I could spend days drawing these guys. Part of it is the fact that they look and dress so different from Americans, and there's that fascination with whatever's different. That's why we all take photos on vacation, isn't it? It's someplace different.

But in addition to being different, the Afghans I've dealt with have great character in their faces. They've lived through experiences that you and I don't even like to read about. They have a dignity and gravity about them. But there's often an openness, a friendliness, sometimes even an eagerness, that's almost childlike. (Not always - in one of our meetings, I sat next to a guy who wanted nothing to do with me. But he listened intently to what was said and made some very sharp, focused, and interesting remarks back to the Boss.)

Spin Boldak Official

Ballpoint pen on lined notebook paper

7"x5"

Spin Boldak Official

Ballpoint pen on lined notebook paper

7"x5"

These were done during a meeting with district officials. These guys were quite lively. Some of their discussion was "I want ... " and "I need ... ", aimed at ISAF, which is how they've been getting much of their resources over the past ten years. But as the boss made clear, ISAF's not going to provide much more, and they need to get their resources from their own government. I could see from their faces that they were getting the message.

Later we talked with the tribal shura. A "shura" is a meeting of the elders to discuss whatever happens to be the topic of the day. Spin Boldak has created a very representative shura assembly that reflects its tribal diversity. This is the meeting where I sat next to the guy who didn't want anything to do with me. Watching the crowd, if you ignored the turbans, beards, and Afghan dress, it was like a community meeting anywhere in the States, except maybe more respectful. They listened, thought about it, made their own points, and in general were actively engaged. I hope I can get back down there for another shura meeting soon, only this time without the boss, so that I can better see their dynamics in action.

So what's the future here? It remains to be seen. Spin Boldak is a very complex place, much more so than any other place in the region, except maybe Kandahar City. There are lots of power players, lots of different dynamics, and we have only a shallow understanding of it. Not for lack of trying, but Afghan society, especially in a place like this, has undercurrents and behind-closed-doors deals and unstated understandings that outsiders will not, ever, know about. I recently described Spin Boldak as a paper-thin layer of official government laid on top of a spaghetti-plate of real activity. We're doing what we can to help develop that official layer so that the spaghetti-plate doesn't destroy itself later on.

Friday Musings

2011-12-02T02:50:00.001-05:00

Maiwand District Chief of Police

Ballpoint pen on lined paper, 7"x5"

A few days ago, I went out to the district of Maiwand to meet with the new District Governor and District Chief of Police. It was an interesting trip. I wound up sitting right next to the Governor and taking notes, so I couldn't do any sketches. When we met with the Chief of Police, though, I managed to grab a seat to the side and was free to sketch away. Here's the one of the DCoP.

The big news over the past few days has been the incident in the eastern part of the country where ISAF forces killed a number of Pakistani border troops. Most of the news reporting that I've seen has focused on Pakistan's indignant response. They've roundly condemned the attack as unprovoked, an assault on Pakistani sovereignty, and an international travesty. Additionally, they've thrown us out of a base that we were using to launch drones and they've pulled out of the Bonn talks on the future of Afghanistan that just started. And, in what will eventually affect me personally, they've closed ISAF's overland supply routes from the seaport of Karachi into Afghanistan for an indefinite period. In response, we've issued our condolences to Pakistan, especially to the families of those killed, and launched an investigation into the incident. Afghanistan has also issued condolences and tried to get Pakistan to come to the table in Bonn. Pakistan, though, is in a helluva snit and does not want to play.

There is, of course, more to this story. Afghan TV and print media are reporting that the Pakistani forces who were attacked had been shooting at an Afghan border village for some time, forcing residents to stay indoors. These reports have also stated that an Afghan patrol, with ISAF backup, had come under fire from the Pakistani side of the border, which was what prompted the call for the ISAF attack helicopter to return fire. I haven't seen any of this in Western news reports, though, only in Afghan.

So before everybody gets too excited and starts condemning ISAF forces as being trigger-happy cowboys (Pakistan's position), let's just wait until the investigation is done. I bet it's not quite what we've heard so far.

In other news, I've been fighting a friction' cold for the past 3 weeks. I'm sick of it. SICK, I tell you! It's knocked me on my butt several times. I don't have time for this. NyQuil and Mucinex and other drugs help the symptoms, but I want it to be gone. Now, please.

So What Are We Doing in Afghanistan?

2011-11-27T13:38:00.001-05:00

That's a pretty good question. I asked it, myself, a lot of times before I ever thought to come here. Most of my answers to myself were pretty negative. If you read the papers, you'll think that the only Americans here are soldiers who are constantly getting in firefights or driving over IED's. You'll also get the idea that Afghanistan is populated only by dirt-poor Taliban who grow poppies for the drug trade during the day and plot ways to kill Americans by night. You'd think that we're wasting money by the truckload on roads that aren't built and buildings that are falling apart, and giving it away to corrupt officials and crooked contractors. You'd probably think that we've got no strategy at all, that we're just reacting to whatever the Attack of the Day is, and lying to reporters about how great things are going. And you'd be wrong.

The reality is far, far, far more complex than that. I think it's far more complex than even Iraq was. Iraqis, at least, have an appreciation and understanding of modern ways of doing business, of how government works, what industry is, what schools should do, and so forth. They may not always act in accordance with what Westerners would do, but they have a fairly good understanding of modern society. Afghans, in general, don't. Their country has been in at war for over 30 years now and wasn't very advanced before that. They've essentially been on international welfare for ages. (And if you think we know how to get people off welfare, you haven't been paying attention to Detroit, south-central LA, or most any other major city). The more I learn about Afghanistan, the more complicated it gets. I'm not alone: this slide below was prepared for General McChrystal to illustrate just how hard it is here:

General McChrystal's response to this was, "When we understand this slide, we'll have won the war". He wasn't kidding. Anytime you do anything here, it affects everything else, one way or another.

So now that we've established that this place is hard, and that you the public are probably misinformed, the question is, what's really going on here? Well, that's like the parable of the three blind men trying to describe an elephant. I'm just one of those blind guys, grappling with my own little corner of the elephant. But I think my perspective is a pretty good one.

We're following a strategy that's being driven by a lot of things. Time and politics are the two primary drivers. There's a line in the sand that says that the Afghan government will be running the whole show by the end of 2014 and that international forces (including US) will play a minor and supporting role after that. (Note that this does not say that all US and NATO troops will be out of the country, contrary to what a lot of pundits think). This timeline is driven primarily by the domestic politics in both the US and Afghanistan. That's the mission that's been handed down, so the US/NATO military forces, the various embassies, and the Afghan government, are all working unbelievably hard to try to figure out how to do it.

Our mission is to build the capability of the Afghan society, primarily the government, to manage their own affairs. That means teaching them effective leadership and management skills and helping them build organizations that can function. We're helping them establish ways to budget for, and then carry out, essential services. We're building up Afghan security forces that can maintain control of the country and keep insurgents marginalized. We're laying the groundwork for economic growth so that more people can have jobs and less incentive to plant bombs.

For years, we've been doing a lot of this stuff for them. People told us they needed a road, we built them a road. They needed electrical power, we put up a diesel generator plant and distribution system, and then provided the fuel to run it. We became a "shadow government" because we know how to do things, while the Afghan government was not capable of providing those services. But we can't do this anymore. It's time to get the Afghans to learn how to do their own road maintenance, collect fees for electrical service, and provide fuel for the generators. So we've shifted our focus to training, mentoring, and assisting the Afghan government to do these functions for themselves. This has been going on now for a couple of years. We've already transitioned some areas over to Afghan control and they're running the show there. In three years, it'll all be under Afghan control.

I've been involved in planning efforts for our corner of Afghanistan, which includes the provinces of Kandahar, Uruzgan, Daykundi, and Zabul, all in the southern part of the country. Our military and civilian team has been following an extremely complex and thorough planning process. Basically it starts three years out with what the situation should be at the end of 2014, and works backwards, identifying what needs to happen in order to get to that point. It identifies the risks, opportunities, hard-and-fast requirements for specific actions, assumptions, facts, best-guesses, resources, and much, much more. There are dozens of people involved, representing dozens of organizations, all of which are putting some of their best minds to it. For weeks now, we've been doing an iterative process: breaking off into specialized groups, brainstorming, identifying the key issues, discussing with other groups, comparing notes, re-working everything, doing everything we can to develop a solid campaign plan that can effectively achieve the mission, and is robust enough to handle the unexpected. The end result will be a campaign plan that will guide operations over the next few years.

Little of this is visible to the boots on the ground, reporters, or others who have not been involved. But the effects of the previous generations of campaign plans can be seen. The district of Arghandab, that I wrote about a few weeks ago, was an unbelievably fierce battleground 18 months ago, but is pretty quiet now. Most other districts around here are fairly quiet, too. Yes, there are still kinetic operations going on not far from here, but the insurgency has been pushed way back. Al Qaeda in the Afghanistan and Pakistan area has been torn to pieces. The Taliban is still here and still effective, but it was never really popular, so their base of support has been seriously eroded. We've made a lot of progress. It's fragile, but it's progress.

The challenge now is to get the Afghan government to a level where they can sustain that progress by themselves. The reality is that they're going to need a lot of help, both now and for the foreseeable future. But that's our mission. That's what we're doing in Afghanistan.

In the Spin Again

2011-11-21T12:33:00.001-05:00

There's a bad case of the KAF Krud going around. (KAF, of course, being the acronym for our own Kandahar Air Field). I got the bug last week and have been calling its namesake all week ("kaf kaf kaf kaf"). Fortunately, though, my case was fairly short-lived, about seven days, but I'll have to live with the kaf'ing for several more, apparently. Colds are no fun.

I just got back from an overnight trip to Spin Boldak. We had a meeting between a headquarters team that I'm on and the military and civilian leaders in Spin. The goal was to work through some of the planning and reporting requirements that will guide a lot of our efforts from here on. As it turned out, we were in violent agreement with the Spin Boldak team on the general direction we should take; our differences were primarily in how some things had been worded, and the different interpretations that we'd put on them. I think we're pretty much on the same page now. A good feeling.

The rest of my team left after the meeting, but I stayed for the night in order to get a bit more familiar with Spin B and the players. I got to see some of the Army unit's command and control, which was very enlightening. I'll just say that they have a pretty good handle on the insurgent threat, where the insurgents operate, and how to respond to different kinds of activities.

This morning, I sat in on a shura with some village elders. A "shura" is a meeting to discuss a particular problem. Afghans are a very egalitarian society, meaning that they arrive at decisions by discussion and consensus. This particular shura was called because kids in the village had been throwing big rocks at military vehicles when they passed through. The rocks had caused some expensive damage, and the very act of getting close enough to throw these rocks meant the kids were putting themselves into danger. So the Colonel called the village elders down to talk about the situation, get the kids in line, and to build some better bridges between the village and the military. I think the meeting was successful. The Colonel proved to be quite diplomatic, forceful, and effective. The elders seemed to get the message and said all the right things. The proof, of course, will come the next couple of times that military vehicles roll through.

I had no part in the proceedings, but was at the table anyway. This time I brought my sketchpad. I started doing a quick study of one of the elders. He caught on to what I was doing right away and was very intrigued. Then it turned out that he was one of the key village elders who set the tone for the rest. I had to leave the shura early to catch the helicopter, but I pulled the drawing out of the pad and gave it to him across the table as I left. He seemed to get a big kick out of it. So that's my contribution to today's war effort: building bridges through art!

Death By PowerPoint

2011-11-16T13:39:00.001-05:00

One of the major reasons that I was not keen on working at another headquarters command was pounded home to me tonight. I sat through a 1 1/2-hour meeting whose sole purpose was to fine-tune the PowerPoint slides that will be given to a general tomorrow night.

You read that right. We had 17 people (not counting me) in a conference room. All but four were military officers, most of them at the Lieutenant Colonel level, meaning around 15-22 years experience. That's a lot of horsepower, especially when you remember that other lieutenant colonels not far from here are leading thousands of soldiers into combat at this very moment. But instead of combat, these guys were focused on briefing slides. Over forty slides, none of which were legible from more than five feet away. Each one had two logos, one title, multiple boxes, arrows, color codes, bullet points, 4-point font, and enough words to fill a Danielle Steele novel. I could read the titles and maybe a headline or two over the bullet points, but that was it. Even if you could read the fine print, it would take you half an hour to figure out what the slide was supposed to tell you, because it was so full of acronyms, compressed phrases, and Afghan-specific jargon.

I know the general that this briefing is intended for. He's the kind of guy who loves to dig down into a topic, ask lots of questions about details, find the obscure little byways of an idea, and gnaw at it until there's no life left at all ... in either the subject or the audience. And what's really scary is that these guys tonight are giving him a huge variety of topics to play with. It'll take him six or eight hours to go through them all. And he'd have a ball doing it, too. Non-stop.

Not me. I'm afraid I'm going to be tied up in another meeting tomorrow night. Even if I have to make one up.

PowerPoint has been the bane of military operations for many years. There was a great article in the NY Times a year or so ago that addressed it. I used PowerPoint back in my own military career, but it was nowhere near as all-encompassing, nor as crammed full of data, as these presentations are.

I may be an 82nd "Chairborne", but I'm not a PowerPoint Ranger. I'd rather pull out my toenails with a rusty pair of pliers than sit through tomorrow night's briefing.

Spin Boldak

2011-11-13T11:38:00.000-05:00

Life is different when you're traveling with a general. They go with entourages. They'll have several cars to move everybody. Helicopters wait for them. When the group gets to wherever the general is going, there are people there to take and store everybody's gear, guide all the staff to their particular destination, and make sure that everybody is well taken care of. They treat you like you're Very Important.

I didn't have the heart to tell them I'm not very important. The only ones who think I'm important are my dogs and sometimes my wife. I just happened to be the designated staff officer to tag along on this trip. But I didn't say anything, I just smiled and enjoyed it while I could. Tomorrow, it'll be back to the real world: humping my bag and battle rattle (kevlar vest, helmet, and other heavy goodies) along a dusty road, waiting two hours for the helo to arrive (IF it arrives), trying to figure out where to go and what to do at the far end, and hoping to hell that I got off at the right FOB.

Today's trip was to attend a quarterly operations briefing in the province of Spin Boldak, which is down on the border with Pakistan. This briefing was special because it was being done by the Afghan National Security Forces, meaning the Army, National Police, Border Police, Customs, and the District Governor. Now a US military organization could put on a presentation like this without breaking a sweat, although it would inundate you with 75 PowerPoint slides and detailed discussions of logistical and operational considerations that you would never have considered. Not so with the Afghans. This is still very new to them. The men speaking today are smart in all ways Afghan, but many of them probably can't read and few have done much in the way of public speaking. Still, they did a fairly credible job. Very little of what they said was news to us, but that wasn't the point. The goal was to get them to think about what it is they've done so far, what their goals are, what their resources are, how to get where they want to go, and how to put that thought process into words.

Since I was considered Very Important, I had a front-row seat, right in front of the stage with the real VIP's. That meant I couldn't nod off, scratch wherever it itched, or behave like I normally do. So I entertained myself with sketching a few of the briefers instead, making it look like I was taking notes.

This was the Chief of Police for the district of Spin Boldak. He and his men have a very tough job. This district has a sizable local insurgency. More importantly, it has one of Afghanistan's primary border crossings with Pakistan. There's a huge amount of traffic (well, huge for this area) going back and forth. Smuggling has been a major occupation ever since the border was created and they're very good at it. And the smugglers carry everything: war material in, drugs out, booze in, money out, people both ways, and more. The Border Police are charged with taking care of the border, but the Chief of Police has to deal with all the district's related issues. And he has to do it with a minuscule budget and people who often aren't paid for maybe months at a time.

This was the District Governor. He also has an unenviable task. Unlike American governors, Afghan governors don't have much power. He doesn't make or control the district's budget, for example, since there isn't one. All funds are apportioned to line ministries by the national government in Kabul, and the ministries control their own activities in the districts. Imagine if your Department of Public Works was funded by, and answerable only to, a National Public Works Department in Washington. That's what these guys have to live with. They are, essentially, appointed by President Karzai to keep tabs on what's going on at the local level. They kinda/sorta make the district's concerns known to the provincial and national level and maybe try to coordinate a few things between ministries. Maybe. And more than a few have been assassinated over the years. Think you'd want that job?

But all in all, the briefing went well. I had some good discussions with my contacts down there and met a few local Afghans, including the District Governor. Then it was time for the Entourage to Depart, so off we went to catch our Blackhawk helicopters again and fly back to our base. And then life returned to normal: back in the office, about a hundred emails were waiting for me. Such excitement, I can't imagine.

"Transition"

2011-11-11T13:24:00.002-05:00

Has it really been a week since I last posted? It's been pretty hectic and the trip to Arghandab seems just like a couple of days ago. I've been a travelin' man since then, having been out to the districts of Dand and Maiwand, as well as into Kandahar City twice. We had another trip scheduled for today, but a bit of rain last night flooded out the roads.

These frequent trips are part of our effort to get everybody onboard with Transition. That's transition with a big T, meaning it has all kinds of very loaded meanings. Transition means the process of scaling back our efforts, shifting responsibility over to the Afghan government, and providing them with support and help while they get their own processes up and running. It's a big, big task. There's an overall plan that has been developed between the international community (mostly us, but with the participation of NATO, some neighboring nations, some not-quite-neighboring, the UN, and maybe a few others), all working with Afghanistan. They've laid out the overall guidelines. I'm part of the Regional Command South, which covers the provinces of Kandahar, Zabul, Uruzgan, and Daykundi, and we have developed our own plan for putting those guidelines to work in our area. So I've been going out with a few others to work with the small District Support Teams that are out in the districts. We go over the plan and how it can/should be implemented in their specific area.

Since every one is very different, it's a challenge. Some areas are fairly quiet and secure. Some areas are "kinetic", meaning there's a lot of fighting going on. Some districts have good people in the government who are trying to do good things. Other areas are stuck with guys who may be corrupt, or don't show up for work, or are lazy or incompetent. More than a few government workers can't read or write. Kandahar City is a major metropolis with somewhere around 800,000 people in a fairly small area. Other districts are very rural, with only a few thousand people scattered over hundreds of square miles. Mullah Omar came from just west of Kandahar and that area is still heavily influenced by the Taliban. But most of the people in the region don't like the Taliban, viewing them (correctly) as brutal thugs. So every area is very different and requires a very different approach.

On one of my trips, I went out to Maiwand District. This was a good trip. The team out there, to include the civilians and the military, has a good grasp of what they need to do and we just provided some specific help. After the meetings, we went to an old British fort for a celebration with the local Afghans.

Now when I say "old British fort", I mean it was built sometime around the 1830's. "Old" to you and me, yesterday to the Afghans. It still has its original wooden doors, as you can see above. This was apparently the last fort the British held before they withdrew from Afghanistan altogether. The celebration was for Eid al-Adha, which is a major Muslim holiday. It marks the end of the Hajj and commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael. The American troops and civilians from the outpost hosted the celebration for local police and Army forces. It was a lot of fun. On the other hand, if I posted photos of the Afghans that attended, I could be putting their lives at risk, because this area has a lot of insurgents. One step at a time ...

I've been able to do a little drawing on occasion. This was made while waiting for our helo transportation back home. Combat Outposts (COPs) are pretty basic places. Tents, shipping containers, MRAPs, a generator or two, piles of water bottles, Hesco barriers (big cloth bags reinforced with galvanized steel mesh and filled with dirt, which makes pretty effective walls), gravel gravel gravel, and lots of razor wire.

There's lots more that I can write, probably because, when you're going so hard for so long, there's so much you want to share. But not tonight. Time to hit the rack. Got an early morning tomorrow. More soon.

Arghandab

2011-11-03T13:17:00.001-05:00

A UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter is a pretty nice ride. Noisy, of course, but as military helicopters go, it's pretty smooth. A group of us rode in this Blackhawk up to the Arghandab district center today for meetings with the District Governor and with the commander of the US troops in the valley.

Some helicopters feel like they have to gather their strength to leap off the ground. Not Blackhawks. They'll be sitting there, whopping and vibrating, and then just lift up and away, with no fuss or bother. We cruised northwest over the Kandahar City suburbs (above) and then over a mountain range and into the Arghandab River Valley. It was really quite beautiful, a wide valley bounded with very steep, rugged ridges that faded into a white haze in the distance.

Just over a year ago, the Arghandab Valley was one of the most contested pieces of real estate in Afghanistan. It saw some of the most vicious fighting between US Army troops on the one hand and Taliban fighters on the other. An article in the Atlantic magazine last year, titled "The Last Patrol", brilliantly captures the ferocity of the battles here. (I consider this article a must-read).

A lot has changed in the year since the article was published. The Army soldiers who fought so hard were largely successful in pushing the Taliban fighters out of Arghandab. The few Taliban who are left can only mount an occasional raid or plant IEDs. They don't control the territory anymore and are seen by the locals as being the losing side. Now the challenge is in building Afghan capabilities to manage their own affairs without the Taliban. That means helping to establish local government, building police forces, re-establishing the informal shuras by which Afghans have managed themselves for centuries, and forging links between the local government, the provincial government in Kandahar City, and the national government in Kabul.

This is hard. Afghanistan has been in constant war for over 30 years. Few Afghans now have any memory of what peaceful life was like. First it was the Soviets, then the warlords, then the Taliban, and for the past ten years, we've been gradually rolling up the Taliban up. This has given Afghans a very short-sighted outlook. Why plan for the future when you probably won't be alive then? Grab everything you can now. This mindset permeates Afghan ministries, which results in corruption at all levels. Ordinary people see it. And if they don't see it, they invent it. Afghans are masters at conspiracy theories and apply them to everything. If some company gets a contract, it's not thought to be because they submitted the best bid; rather, they must have paid a bribe, or there are tribal connections, or it's a plot by (pick your villain of the day).

The low-level police, for example, are very corrupt everywhere in Afghanistan. And they have a reason: they are paid a pittance, not enough to live on, so they have to do something to make ends meet. They do this by setting up checkpoints and shaking people down. If you're transporting produce, gasoline, or some kind of merchandise, you hand a portion of it over; if not that, then pay a bribe. Or get the crap kicked out of you. Or maybe killed. This is the normal Afghan's daily experience with their government "services", so it's easy to understand why they're leery of supporting it. (The national police have a slightly better reputation, and the army is actually well respected. The army is much more selective and enlist better-qualified people, so it's not surprising).

Today we needed to talk with the District Governor of Arghandab. Shah Mohamad Ahmadi is an extremely capable Afghan leader. He's working hard to cross tribal and village boundaries, build a working government, provide services, and keep the Taliban out. He's not getting much help from the provincial and national levels, though. We talked for a long time about the difficulties that he is facing, as well as what the future holds with the transition to Afghan control coming down the pike. The Governor was quite candid and held nothing back.

Subsequently, we met with the American commander of Army forces in the valley. He is also extremely capable, as well as quite candid about the difficulties that he and his troops are facing now, as well as in the future.

So what did I take away from all this? Our troops fought hard, and many died, to free this valley from Taliban control. They succeeded. To keep the valley free requires a reasonably effective Afghan government. The Afghans, with our support, have only been at it for a bit over a year and have made a lot of progress. But it's very, very fragile. Now there's a deadline facing us. We (the Afghans and the US) have only a limited time to get their government functioning at some very basic level. If we pull out too soon, this valley will revert to either warlords or the Taliban. One is just as bad as the other, both for Afghans and for our own strategic interests.

In 1989, we declared victory when the Soviets left, and then we walked away. The subsequent turmoil led to the Taliban rule and Al Qaeda presence, which in turn led to 9/11. We can't let that happen again. Not after fighting so hard and paying so much in blood and money.

Kandahar City Incident

2011-10-28T11:48:00.000-05:00

One of our small bases in Kandahar City had a little too much excitement yesterday. A small group of insurgents (around four, depending on the source) attacked Camp Nathan Smith with rifles, RPG's, and two car bombs (VBIEDs). But they were pretty spectacularly unsuccessful. Not only did they never breach the gate, but they were forced back into a nearby house, where some were killed by the Afghan police forces and the rest by a Hellfire missile. Unfortunately, one of our interpreters was killed in the attack and a few others wounded.

The success story is that the insurgents were chased down and cornered, and some were killed, by Afghan security forces. They were led by General Raziq, a very strong commander. Think Dirty Harry in charge of a small army and you have a rough idea. He's not what you'd call a "good" guy, but he's extremely effective. General Raziq happened to be at a meeting at the base when the insurgents attacked, and within 15 minutes had his forces mobilized and the insurgents on the run. (These insurgents were both (a) not too swift in their planning and (b) fabulously unlucky.)

This camp is where the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) is based. I have quite a few friends that I work with there, so I was happy to hear that all were safe.

Kandahar has been very quiet in recent weeks. There has been little in the way of "kinetics" (military-speak for "shooting and bombing") throughout the city. The airport, where I'm based, is several miles outside of town. It has been the frequent target of rocket attacks, but in the two weeks I've been here, we've only had maybe three days with attacks. The general feeling is that the insurgents are winding up the fighting season and laying up for winter. Yesterday's assault, and another in a nearby town, were probably their "goodbye" messages until spring. They won't be missed. Not by us and not by the locals, either. Most of the people here just want to live normal lives. They don't much care who's in charge. Well, yes they do: they don't like the Taliban because they're violent thugs, but they don't like us because we're infidels, foreigners, and wherever we are, there are Taliban attacks. They just want somebody who'll leave them the hell alone.

We're working on it.

Getting Up to Speed

2011-10-27T13:43:00.001-05:00

The steep side of the learning curve is a tough place to be. So much to learn, so little time to learn it before you feel like you're a boat anchor on an otherwise functional organization. Having been through it so many times before, I know it's only temporary.

You have to learn to speak in acronyms when you're working with the military. "I'm taking an MRAP to FOB Falcon to meet with the J5 in the MOST about the RSSA. See you at the DFAC, then we'll RTB by 1730 for the BUA at the COB." Acronyms have a half-life of about two years before they're overtaken by new ones. Seems like about half the ones I used in Iraq have been supplanted by new versions, and some of the ones I used now mean something entirely different. It's like learning a new language. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what it is.

Gradually, though, I'm getting there. After sitting through six or seven meetings, reading a few hundred emails, and going through a dozen PowerPoint briefing packages, things are starting to make sense. I'm recognizing terms and concepts and even a few acronyms here and there. Finally, today I felt like I was starting to make substantive contributions. I was in a meeting about one of the largest projects in southern Afghanistan. Most of the discussion had been about typical project management issues: resources, timelines, coordination, and so forth. All of which was valuable, but at this point in the campaign, the focus is shifting from building stuff for the Afghans to getting the Afghans to support and maintain the projects we've already done. So I pointed out the new direction and asked how we were going to address it with this project. Changed the whole focus of the meeting, which went on for another hour and a half.

And this is an important point, one that we've discussed several times over the last few days. Remember when George Bush said we're not going to do nation-building? That's pretty much the main thrust of everything we've been doing ever since. In typical American fashion, our response has been to throw money and people at the problem and hope something happens. So lots of people, mostly pretty smart and very dedicated, have been giving it their best shot for the past ten years. And for ten years, we've been on the steep side of the learning curve. How do you build nations? Particularly when, as in Iraq, the nation isn't nearly as advanced as it thinks it is? Or when, as in Afghanistan, it's still a feudal, medieval area that doesn't really have much of a government?

For years, our answer has been to give them things we think they need. We built schools, but they can't find teachers for it, so they often sit empty. We built clinics, but there's no electricity for them. We put in diesel generators, but they can't buy the fuel. And so on. That's not to say that what we've done has made no difference: it certainly has. There are more and more schools opening up every day and villages are recruiting teachers. Clinics are staffed by people with almost no education (literally) but years of experience. Businessmen are creating local Chambers of Commerce. I'm seeing tiny baby steps of progress.

As T.E. Lawrence said, "Better the Arabs do it tolerably than you do it perfectly." This was true in Iraq as we gradually stepped back and the Iraqis took control of their own country. It was slow and difficult, but by the time I left in the spring of 2010, they were capable of standing by themselves if they wanted to. Now we're beginning to do the same thing with the Afghans, only they are starting from a much different base: much lower literacy, no infrastructure to speak of, no real economy, and not much in the way of resources. And we have a definite timeline: in three years, they will be fully in the driver's seat. It remains to be seen whether they can do it "tolerably" as a nation. They're doing it now in some areas of the country, but not here, not yet.

Sure hope I can do something to help them along.

Settling In

2011-10-21T11:17:00.001-05:00

Kandahar Airfield is a big base, with over 30,000 people running around on it. The demographics are pretty skewed. Most of the people are young, in their very early 20's. Most are male. Most are Americans. Most are military. I meet two of those criteria: male and American, but I'm no longer young and no longer military. Still, despite the heavy tilt in a few key directions, there's a lot of diversity here, too. Walk anywhere and you'll pass lots of different soldiers: Belgians, Slovaks, Canadians, French, Australians, Romanians, Czechs, Germans, Dutch, Singaporean, and more. There are lots of contractors here from nations around the world: Russia, Thailand, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, you name it. There are a fair number of both military and civilian women. And there are quite a few graybeards, like me, old fogies who make you wonder what the hell they're doing in a war zone.

And it is a war zone. We've had a few alarms go off and every day the EOD guys (explosive ordnance disposal) conduct a few controlled detonations. Recently, there was a rocket attack and the Taliban issued a statement claiming that we had suffered dire casualties. In reality, it hit the sewage settling lagoon (aka, the "poop pond") and all it took out were some "brown trout".

Kandahar Airfield is my new base of operations for the next year. I'm part of a mobile team that goes out to various places to help build Afghan capabilities to govern their own country. I wasn't originally slated for this job. I was supposed to go to a small team on a forward operating base (a FOB) to work closely with a particular district government. But when I got here, suddenly they were talking about keeping me here at the headquarters. Frankly, I wasn't happy. I've done plenty of headquarters and staff tours - too many - and didn't want to sit around meeting with Americans all day long. I could do that back in the States. But then they put me on this mobile team and I'm happy. It's a new team with some very sharp people, and we're going to be on the road a lot. I'll get to see a lot of different places here in southern Afghanistan, rather than one particular small base. Sounds good to me!

My living quarters are still pretty basic. I'm going to be living in transient quarters for a few weeks since all the permanent rooms are taken. Transient quarters are CHUs about 8 feet wide and 20 feet long, with two bunk beds in it and not much else. When you've got four guys living in that small a space, it can get a little ... umm ... "musty". At the moment, though, it's just two of us, and at least I've got a bottom bunk. Bathrooms and showers are in another building about 20 yards away. I'm just happy I'm not on a cot.

It's Friday night now, which means movie night. Our command gets pizzas and shows movies on the T-walls outside. Everybody pulls up a chair and enjoys a flick. They just finished "Last of the Mohicans" and are starting "O Brother Where Art Thou".

So. I'm checked into my new job and it's a good one with some sharp colleagues. I've got a pretty good living situation, all things considered. Gonna be a good year.

Weekend

2011-10-14T11:04:00.003-05:00

It's a beautiful day in Kabul. The sky is a clear cerulean blue, with a light haze near the ground and not a cloud to be seen. The temperature is around 70 with very light, ghosting, puffs of breeze. The city is very quiet today. It's Friday, the Afghan weekend, so there's no construction and traffic is at a minimum. I can hear compressors from chill units here on the Embassy compound, a few birds chirping, and a little light traffic noise from out in town.

I'm sitting in a picnic area under some kind of tree that has round leaves. You can tell it's had a rough life: branches have been sawn off or broken off and the trunk has a tortuous wrap to it. The tree and I are surrounded by CHUs. These are the shipping containers that have been turned into housing units. The CHUs are wrapped and topped with sandbags, all covered up neatly with heavy tan canvas, in order to protect their people from incoming rockets, mortars, and small arms fire. Most of these containers are divided into two living quarters, each housing two people. Each one is equipped with a bunk bed, dresser, TV, tiny desk, tiny refrigerator, locker, and a bathroom with a sink, toilet, and shower. This is pretty primo quarters, too. Most CHUs in Afghanistan don't have running water. I'm hoping that (a) I get a CHU at my assignment and (b) that it has running water. I'm probably dreaming.

I've been to two nearby military compounds in the past couple of days. As I noted previously, military forces are using shipping containers as their building block of choice for expeditionary construction. I've seen some very large barracks - 3 stories tall, 10 units deep, 2 units wide - built entirely out of shipping containers. You want office space? No problem: plop down six or eight containers, plug in electrical power, fire up the air conditioners, open the doors, and you're in business.

Americans aren't the only ones using containers. Afghans are, too. On the road to another base, I saw lots of containers housing small stores, rug shops, gas stations, offices, you name it. Afghans don't stack containers like Americans do, but they're just as imaginative in devising new uses for them.

As in Iraq, Fridays are the weekend. That accounts for the quiet on the streets outside the Embassy compound. The Embassy and international military forces stand down, too. Over at the ISAF compound, soldiers from a variety of nations are playing soccer, sitting in a restaurant, or checking out the bazaar. It's pretty cool to walk around and see all the different uniforms. Germany, Italy, Macedonia, the Netherlands, and more. The merchants running the stores and restaurants come from all over as well. You can get a good Italian pizza made by a Chinese couple, or order Mexican burritos from an Indian. An Afghan gent will be happy to sell you a variety of electronic gizmos as long as you pay in Euros. Yes, Kabul is quite the international city.

I'm enjoying a bit of rest today while I can. Things are going to change very shortly.

Kabul

2011-10-10T06:43:00.000-05:00

Kabul is half a world away from home and, at 5900+ feet, a lot higher than even Denver. Each of these facts alone would wreck my sleep; combined, they've caused me a lot of aggravation over the past week. But I'm finally getting adjusted. I slept in until 3 a.m. this morning, which was a whole hour better than yesterday. Tomorrow, I'm shooting for 3:30!

Our group of intrepid volunteers arrived in Kabul on Tuesday of last week. We retrieved our bags in the airport terminal under an ad featuring a bearded smiling Afghan gent urging us to listen to FM 108, "For the Rock and Roll in all of us!". Then we were herded into our armored SUVs and hustled through Kabul traffic to the Embassy. Kabul traffic reminds me very much of, say, the Philippines, or Baghdad, or Bangkok, only with fewer rules. "Cut-throat" doesn't even come close. I'm glad I was in the back seat with plenty of heavy steel between me and the cars, trucks, and donkey carts outside.

We arrived safely and were quickly settled into our hooches, given temporary badges, and shown around the compound, our new temporary home. Over the next few days we went through a variety of training classes such as security precautions, medical, Embassy organization, our mission in Afghanistan, IED familiarization and so on. Meanwhile I worked to get a lot of nitnoid admin things straightened out. My travel account, for example, has duplicate entries for a trip I took from Iraq three years ago; one of these entries is marked "closed" and the other "open" for reasons that are impossible to discern. Another account is to be used to arrange travel within Afghanistan and, for some reason, they aren't letting me into it yet. A third account is to be used to arrange international travel and I have no idea where to even find that one. Meanwhile, I need to make some changes to my pay account, but they haven't given me a user ID and password. Ah, bureaucracy at its finest.

While in Iraq, I commented on the ubiquity of temporary buildings, especially those made out of shipping containers. They've taken it to a new level in Afghanistan. You would not believe the office and berthing complexes that can be built, Lego-style, with shipping containers. They can be multi-story edifices with large decks, long single-story rows surrounded by sandbags, stand-alone units, or anything in between. My particular hooch is a shipping container. It sits at a slight list to starboard and down a bit in the stern, but it has air conditioning and a functioning bathroom. We call this a "wet CHU". I'm happy to have it right now because in a week or so, I'll be in a "dry CHU", meaning the bathroom is in another shipping container somewhere outside. And a few days after that, I'm apparently going to be in someplace even more basic. More on that when it develops.

Over the past two days, I've been in contact with the unit that I'm headed to. I've talked to a couple of people who already work there (or nearby) and have learned a lot about my soon-to-be life. And I have to say, I'm pretty excited about it. The mission is challenging, the living arrangements extremely spartan, and the operational environment a bit more exciting than I'd prefer. But on the whole, it's a mission that needs doing and I can do it.

So in a few days I'll finish up the last of my training here in Kabul. Then I'll head downrange, visit with a couple of organizations that I'll be working with, and finally arrive at my assignment.

Maybe by that time, I'll be able to sleep the whole night.

Hotel Rooms

2011-10-07T07:35:00.000-05:00

My hotel room in Dubai.

My "hotel" room at the US Embassy, Kabul. Mine is the top bunk.

Training Completed

2011-10-01T15:56:00.001-05:00

For the past week, I've been in Indiana, going through training at Camp Atterbury and the Muscatatuck national training center. This was an intensive immersion period. We lived in conditions similar to those we'll live in in Afghanistan on a Contingency Operating Base (COB). We prepared for, and conducted, realistic scenarios in which we travelled to meetings in convoys, met with Afghan officials and villagers, and responded to attacks. We learned a lot about our mission. Most important, we forged some really strong teams in a very short time.

The week did not start well for me. I got to the airport in Washington a couple of hours before show time and discovered that my ticket had not been paid for. Yep, that's right, our admin section had only processed the first half of my travel preps. They'd made my reservations, but they hadn't actually gotten around to paying for them. And this was a Saturday afternoon. Think they're going to be in their offices working? Are you smoking dope? I got on the phone and called the travel agency that State uses. The first agent put me on hold and eventually disconnected me. The second told me to go home and they'd reschedule my travel for Monday or Tuesday. Not an option: training started that night. Finally, the third agent worked with me to find a duty officer in State who verbally authorized them to issue the ticket and State would follow up with the paperwork on Monday. So 45 minutes before takeoff, my ticket was issued. Whew! I was a nervous wreck, but I was on the plane.

We landed in Indianapolis and were then bused down to Camp Atterbury. The next morning (Sunday), we had an orientation briefing and then launched into a videoconference with the US Embassy in Kabul. For me, this made it real: here were the people that we will be seeing in person, and working with, in just a few days. Immediately afterward, it was off to the field where we got some familiarization training with pistols and then learned how to survive an MRAP rollover. This part included being loaded into an MRAP simulator and turned upside down. Getting out of an upside-down MRAP while wearing body armor and a helmet is quite the challenge, but we did. That afternoon, we were loaded into another bus and sent to the "COB", where we were issued our body armor, computers, bedding, given our berthing assignments, and basically settled in. We had a faux-briefing, military-style, that evening to set the stage for the week's activities.

On Monday morning the scenarios started in earnest. Every morning, we'd get into our group rooms at around 7 am, have breakfast together, and prepare for the day's meetings. We worked with our military security forces to plan the missions, convoy to wherever we were meeting the Afghans, conduct the meeting, and convoy again to the next scenario. In the evening we'd go over the lessons learned from the day's activities and then prepare for the next day. We'd generally hit the rack around 10-11 pm after going hard all day long.

I have to give kudos to all involved for the quality of this training. It was some of the very best I've ever had. Classroom training is one thing, but most people learn by doing, and this week, we did a lot. The pace was hard, the scenarios well-crafted, and all the Afghan roles were played by real Afghans. The role of a police chief, for example, was played by a guy who had been a real police chief in Afghanistan. A "village elder" really was a village elder. An imam had been a senior official in an Afghan bank. Most of our interpreters were extremely fluent in English - so much so that we were warned that most of the ones we'll work with in the field will not be as good.

So what were the scenarios like? We met with a provincial governor to introduce ourselves. We met with a district governor and tribal elders to discuss the reintegration of Taliban insurgents into the village. We tried to discuss agricultural issues with officials who wanted to talk about something else entirely. We went to a village where a house had been bombed by mistake, killing somebody and causing a lot of anger and mistrust. We visited a health clinic that had been poorly built under a US-funded program and was not being supported by the national and district governments. We were attacked by insurgents on several occasions. We drafted reports. We provided briefings to military commanders. We briefed the the US Ambassador on provincial issues when he came through on a short visit. Basically, we did things that we will be doing in real life in another week or two.

This past week was hard work, but it was a lot of fun as well. I had a great team. Among our group of six, there was a wide range of experience: Peace Corps, agriculture, international NGO, State Department, law, military, and business. There were no outsize egos and there were no slackers. Everybody led at some point and everybody had the experience of being completely lost at others. Everybody had a sense of humor about it all, too. At one point, we were meeting with villagers on a serious matter. We were sitting around a rug with the elders, cross-legged and with our boots and helmets off, deep in sensitive discussions, when a firefight erupted. Our security forces pulled us out and, with no time for dilly-dallying, we raced off through the mud in our socks, boots in one hand and helmets jammed on our heads with the other, laughing like fiends.

There were other fun times. The last night, our Afghan role-players held a party for us. It was Afghan-style: rugs on the floors, shoes off, men dancing to Afghan music, women grouped together in the back of the room, and plenty of great Afghan food. I sat and talked with one man who had been in several scenarios with us and learned more about him and his history. It was great.

So now I'm sitting in a hotel room near Dulles Airport. I did my laundry this morning and then mailed home a bunch of things that I won't need downrange. I'm putting together another box of stuff to be mailed to me once I get an address. I really don't want to go lugging two heavy duffel bags halfway around the world if it's not absolutely necessary.

And I'm enjoying hot showers again. After a week of living in rather austere conditions (think the worst KOA campground you've ever been to, including mud, gravel, and showers with no hot water, and you get the picture), it's great to be back in a civilized environment.

But this respite is short-lived. Tomorrow I get on the plane and head to my new job. After all this training, I'm excited about it. And nervous. But I'm really looking forward to it. This is going to be a long, intense, and frustrating year, but it's a chance to contribute to a much greater effort. How often do you get a chance to do something like that? You gotta grab it when you can and run with it. Time to run, then!

On To The Next Phase

2011-09-24T07:59:00.000-05:00

My training in DC finished up yesterday. I have to say that what I've seen so far is way better than what I saw three years ago. These courses were very well laid out, with well-chosen topics and mostly good presenters. This week, we started with presentations and moved more into scenario-based role-playing. These demanded that we be involved and participating, and provided some excellent insight into what we'll be facing.

For example, in one role, I was on a small district-level team that was having trouble with a district official. He was always off for "consultations" in the provincial capital and never in his district. But as I put myself in his place, I realized that he couldn't read, couldn't write, didn't know what his job was supposed to be, wasn't from the area, was probably from a different tribal background, didn't know anybody, and was probably curled up in a fetal position under the desk, sucking his thumb and waiting for the hammer to fall. My job was to build his confidence, get him out to the villages and introduce him to the elders, and give him some of the basic tools to do something. Anything. Because the Afghan government doesn't have the resources to do it.

Next week, I'll be in an immersion course in Indiana. We'll be living on a pseudo-FOB (a Forward Operating Base), working with military counterparts also going thru training, and interacting with Afghans. We'll learn what to do if an MRAP rolls over and ride in a helo, live in tents and eat in DFACs. Should be fun.

So today, I have to wrap up things here in the DC area. There are some computer account issues that I have to straighten out, make a bank run, go by the post office, drop off a bag at the hotel I'll stay at next weekend, turn in the rental car, and get on the flight. Time's a-wastin'!

A Week of Training

2011-09-18T18:58:00.000-05:00

It's been a pretty busy week since my last post. I completed my first week of training for my new job. It was actually a pretty good course: every topic was important and most were taught by really good instructors. There were a few that were painful, such as the droning lecturer right after lunch (whiplash city, and not just for me), but overall, I give it high marks. This class was very large, and most of the people have experience in Iraq or Afghanistan already, some for up to five or six years. Only a few were first-timers.

This class gave us a macro overview of Afghanistan. It touched on its history, culture (repeatedly), government, economy, the US strategy, US and international organizations, dealing with the military, life at the Embassy and in the field, and much more. You can't teach everything, especially in one week, but this provided a good framework for the more specific training that will follow. This coming week, I'll be in a smaller group of people who are all headed for assignments in the field ("the field" being anywhere outside Kabul).

My bottom-line takeaway from this week's classes: Afghanistan is a much harder problem than Iraq was, and if we screw it up or pull out too soon, we'll have to go back again.

All was not classroom drudgery, however. We had a group get-together one night, and on two other nights I got to meet up with old friends. One is a friend from my Bosnian deployment - I hadn't seen him in 15 years. The other was a guy I worked closely with in Baghdad. And I'll see a couple more old friends this coming week. That's one good thing about passing through DC when you've spent time in the military or federal service. I also got to see my cousin and her son yesterday and have a wonderful dinner in Dupont Circle. I tell ya, I'm trying to make the most of the opportunities to hit some good restaurants while I can. Life's gonna change here really soon!

Today, I went down to the National Gallery of Art to get my art fix. I took my sketch pad and tried to learn a few things from the masters. Did I? I dunno. But it sure felt good to try!

Employed Again

2011-09-11T21:25:00.001-05:00

This has been a hectic week. I was in a group of nine new temporary employees who are all bound for Afghanistan. We spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday getting paperwork done, badges made, inoculations injected, and training accomplished. It was a pretty well-organized whirlwind of activity.

Wednesday was a maddening day due to the weather. Tropical Storm Lee hit DC that day. We had to do a lot of running around between buildings. It seemed like whenever we had to go outside, it POURED, and as soon as we reached our destination and got inside, it quit. And, of course, we were all wearing the standard DC civilian uniform of blazer, tie, and nice shoes. All of which were quickly soaked in the morning, so we remained in various stages of damp/wet/drenched the rest of the day. It rained Thursday and Friday, too, but we all decided the hell with protocol and went with our Afghanistan field uniform of work shirts, cargo pants and heavy boots.

Yesterday (Saturday), I went up to Baltimore to visit my aunt and cousin. It was great to see them again. They've watched me go off to quite a few adventures over the years: joining the Navy, going off to Bosnia, going to Europe after retirement, then off to Iraq three years ago, and now this. They're not surprised by any of my foolish decisions anymore. I always know there's a home base for me in Baltimore whenever I need it.

Today I went up to Gettysburg. Recently, I discovered that one of my ancestors fought in the 2nd Mississippi infantry regiment and was wounded and captured at Gettysburg, and wrote about it in a blog post. Since Gettysburg is so close to Baltimore, I didn't want to pass up the opportunity. Last time I was there was about 45 years ago (ouch) and we didn't know anything about my ancestor then.

Quick summary: my great-great-grandfather was a private in the 2nd Mississippi. On the first day of the battle, they attacked Union forces just northeast of Gettysburg. They routed some, then turned and hit others from the flank. But then they were caught in a deep cut in the hill for a railroad bed. The sides were too steep to climb, it was too deep to fire out of, and Union forces were on the top of the cut and advancing down the tracks. It was a killing ground before they surrendered.

Today I saw the spot where this action took place. I have to say, exploring a national monument such as the Gettysburg battlefield is different when you have a personal connection to it. Seeing the field across which my great-great-grandfather advanced, the ridge line where he helped route Union forces, and then the deep cut where he was trapped, wounded, and captured, was deeply moving. Of 494 soldiers in the 2nd Mississippi that morning, 411 were killed, wounded, captured, or missing. Numbers are one thing; knowing that one of those numbers was a personal ancestor is another.

Later, I went to see the site of Pickett's Charge. The remnants of the 2nd Mississippi participated in that disaster. Of 60 men who set out across the field, only one was not killed, wounded, or captured. I stood on the spot where my great-great-grandfather's unit had started from and looked out across the field. It was a very humbling experience.

Now I'm back in the DC area. Gettysburg is behind me. Tomorrow we start another class to get trained up for Afghanistan.

The Adventure Begins

2011-09-07T22:16:00.000-05:00

I'm officially a State Department employee again. Today we were sworn in, got our CAC cards (special "smart" ID cards), had the nurses give us some inoculations (rabies and typhoid for me), filled out stacks of forms, and got to know our fellow classmates and support staff. Tomorrow, we start the training program in earnest.

Getting here has been a long road. I actually applied for this particular job back at the end of May. A month later (late June), they contacted me, a kind of "are you sure?"check, and then about 10 days later, I was notified of my selection. Then began the Paperwork Shuffle. Lots of forms went back and forth over email to re-establish my security clearance, get my medical checkups completed, make sure I wasn't a war profiteer, sign up for a savings plan, and much much more. But finally it was done and all that was left was to pack my bags and go.

While all that was going on, Janis and I were getting as much done as possible around the house to get ready. I made sure the cars were tuned and tweaked and shouldn't need maintenance for a while. We double-checked our own paperwork. Janis has some special projects for the house, and we had to get things all lined up for them to get accomplished. And we took some time out to see some of our friends and family.

As for the pending separation, we treated it in the time-honored American way: we pretended it didn't exist. We talked as little as possible about it, and when we did, it was usually in a neutral, roundabout way. But still, when you've been with somebody for 20 years, you can say a lot without actually saying a lot. And we said a lot to each other. So we're ready.

Tuesday was D-Day. I had pretty much completed my packing the day before, so after walking the dogs one last time and having a great breakfast of machaca, we hit the road to the airport. We were fine until we actually got there, and then ... well, it was tough, both on us and the dogs, who knew something bad was going on. We got through it, though. We've done it before and it actually does seem to get easier with practice.

The flight to DC was not the greatest: packed planes, delays, and crappy weather from Tropical Storm Lee. We landed at Reagan National Airport. I haven't been through there in 20 years, and let's just say that things have changed a bit. They've got 10 pounds of facilities in a 5-pound section of real estate. Picked up my rental car and promptly got lost, nearly heading straight into downtown Washington before realizing my mistake and dive-bombing across 2 lanes of traffic to head towards northern Virginia instead. Nothing like trying to find your way through DC metro traffic at rush hour in the rain with only a vague idea of where you are and where you need to go! I lived in the DC area twice before, but this place has changed (see previous comment about Reagan Airport). I kept having this odd experience of knowing I'd been in this particular place before but not recognizing it at all .... kind of an anti-deja-vu feeling. But I finally made it to my hotel, my temporary home for the next couple of weeks. Had a gut-bomb at the McDonald's next door for dinner, unpacked my bags, and settled in.

Bright and early this morning, it was time to head into town. I got there a bit early, which was good, and met up with the rest of my classmates. We were run back and forth between several different locations. Most annoying, whenever we had a long outdoor run, old Tropical Storm Lee dumped BUCKETS of rain on us, and as soon as we got to where we were going, it would stop. We all spent most of the day in various stages of being damp, wet, or completely soaked. No fun. Nothing like dashing through a downpour and plunking your foot ankle-deep into an invisible pothole while wearing a DC-civilian uniform of dress pants, dress shoes, dress shirt, dress tie, and (soaking) blue blazer.

We survived, though. Tomorrow, I'm wearing boots. The hell with protocol.

What To Do In Asheville With Kids

2011-08-31T14:02:00.000-05:00

An old shipmate of mine is coming into Asheville soon. He asked for some recommendations for things to do with his two 3 1/2-year-old kids. I checked with an expert (a friend of ours who has three small kids), combined them with my own recommendations, and thought I'd share them here.

Downtown Asheville. Downtown is very walkable. Most of the buildings date from the early 1900's to late 1920's and have been fixed up. Tons of restaurants, coffee shops, stores, galleries, and so on, most of which are local and not chain stores. The fun part is bounded, more or less, by I-240 on the north, O Henry Ave on the west, Patton Ave on the south, and N. Spruce on the east, with another nice bit on Biltmore Ave (Hwy 25) running a few blocks south of Pack Square.

Health Adventure (www.thehealthadventure.org). It's right in downtown Asheville on Pack Square. It's a participatory, hands-on, interactive, science-oriented place that explores health, biology, and physical sciences. Lots of fun for kids. Open 10-5.

Splasheville. This is in Pack Square, next to the Health Adventure. It shoots random jets of water in the air. Kids can run around in it and get soaked. Better bring some towels and dry clothes. Read about it and some other water-oriented attractions at:

http://blog.exploreasheville.com/2011/05/budget-friendly-ways-to-cool-off-this.html

Carrier Park. This used to be the old Asheville Speedway. When it closed, the city turned it into a park, with a large playground, volleyball, basketball, picnic areas, nature walk, river overlooks, more. Located at 220 Amboy Rd on the west side of Asheville.

WNC Nature Center (www.wncnaturecenter.com). This showcases the natural features of western North Carolina. It includes a petting zoo. You can see coyotes, bears, and other critters, too. Located on the east side of Asheville; a bit hard to find but they have directions on the web site.

River Arts District (www.riverartsdistrict.com). This is where I used to have my studio. It's the old industrial area along the French Broad River. Most of the industry has moved out and been replaced by artists: painters, potters, woodworkers, sculptors, you name it, they're there. There will be studios open - some are open 7 days a week, others catch-as-catch-can. Some great places to eat down there, too: 12 Bones Barbecue (won a national competition on Good Morning America), the Clingman Cafe, and White Duck Tacos, to name three. Plus a brewery.

Mountain Play Lodge (www.mountainplaylodge.com). It's an indoor play center located in Arden, just south of Asheville on Hwy 25.

The Hop (www.thehopicecreamcafe.com). Homemade ice cream in sometimes strange but really good flavors. The kids will probably go for vanilla or chocolate, but the adults can get things like salted caramel, nutella, avocado, mustard, or whatever the flavor of the day is. Two locations, one on Haywood Rd. in west Asheville, the other a mile or two north of downtown on Merrimon.

Asheville's a great place and all the above just barely scratch the surface. If you know of other cool things to do with kids, post a comment!

Messing with the Macs

2011-08-26T15:40:00.001-05:00

One of the things on my "to-do" list before heading out of town is to get our two Macs in good shape. That meant updating to the new Lion operating system, updating all our software, making sure the hardware is in good shape, and taking a few security precautions. I am not a computer junkie - to me, they're a means to an end, not an end in themselves. But just like cars, they need a bit of attention from time to time, and right now, it's time.

The first thing I did was to put a new backup drive on Janis's iMac. Hers had died a while back and I'd been meaning to get around to replacing it but it never percolated to the top of the list. I did a bit of research to find a good Mac-compatible drive, along with a place to buy one, and wound up getting a 1TB Western Digital "MyBook for Mac" on sale at our local Best Buy. Plugged it in, turned it on, and it's working like a champ. I've got a rugged little portable external hard drive for my MacBook that works just fine, so now both of our computers are safely backed up.

The next thing was to update to the new Lion operating system. Now, Microsoft's handling of new OS's pretty much drove me out of the Windows community three years ago. I got tired of getting buggy installations that crashed, acted weird, and needed new drivers or patches or whatever to run my old software and accessories. It often took a lot of fiddling over a week or two before a new "update" would work correctly, and there were several times that I deleted the update in disgust and went back to the old system. Apple's updates have all worked as advertised. Install it, turn it on, and you're good to go.

This time, Lion is only available as a download. And it's a 4GB download, which is a huge file, even on a DSL line. We're talking maybe four hours. So I started the download just before going to bed. Next morning (yes, still with a bit of trepidation), I hit the "install" button. After a few interactive screens, it started installing itself, and an hour later was done. And it worked just fine. I've noticed, though, that everything was a lot slower at first - a lot of waiting, watching the "spinning wheel of death" the first time a program was fired up, and so on. After a few days, things get better. Still, both of our computers feel like they're struggling with a lot more code than before, and normal operations are taking a bit longer.

As for new features, well, there are a lot, but we haven't used them much. I gotta learn more of what they're about before I can take advantage of them.

One new feature that looks promising is FaceTime. This is Apple's video chat feature from the iPhone and iPad. The reason it looks promising is that it is designed to use a small bandwidth. We already have Apple's iChat feature on our Macs, as well as Skype, which works on all kinds of computers, but both of those require a pretty good chunk of bandwidth. When I was in Iraq, iChat never worked and Skype could be spotty. I'm hoping that FaceTime will be more reliable when I head off to Afghanistan.

While doing all this computer tweaking, I also wanted to do something about security. Macs have a reputation as being safer than PC's. That's not really true - Macs are as vulnerable to intrusion as PC's, it's just that there are so many more PC's, the bad guys spend much more effort targeting them and leaving Macs alone. But since I'm heading to A'stan, and we already know that bad guys target good guys in places like that, I wanted to be a bit better prepared. After a bit of research, I discovered that there's a pretty capable malware protector called Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac. Not only is it capable, but it's free. I installed it and it did, indeed, find a bit of malware on my MacBook. Found it and cleaned it up. Janis's iMac was fine, though.

I also found a neat little app called Ghostery. It sits in Safari and tells me who's tracking my visit to any given page. Not only that, but it lets you determine which ones to block and which ones to allow. For example, if I go to the CNN home page, there are six sites tracking me. Four are for companies that provide or track advertising and two are for Facebook links. I'm blocking all the advertising tracking and allowing the social media links. Originally, I blocked everything, but then found that some sites, like Facebook, were acting screwy. So I reset it. Ghostery is a free application and available for PC's as well as Macs, so you can put it on your own web browser.

So now our computers are in pretty good shape. I just need to learn more about what these new features are in Lion. Maybe there's something really cool ...

Three Soldiers

2011-08-17T16:29:00.000-05:00

Recently, I was asked to create portraits of three young soldiers for an Army officer. She had commanded a company that ran supply convoys through Iraq in 2005 and 2006. These three soldiers had been in her company when they were killed - two by an IED and one by a sniper. She felt their loss every day and kept framed photos of them. These portraits were meant to give her something a bit more personal.

Commemorative and posthumous portraits are extremely difficult to do. Getting a good likeness is hard at best; getting a good likeness that has the inner character of the individual is harder. Add in the pressures of getting it right when the subject is no longer around, and you have to work from other people's snapshots that have the wrong posing and lighting, and you have a major headache. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don't. So I am normally not interested in doing such portraits.

This time, though, I wanted to do something for this officer to help her remember her three soldiers. Based on previous experience, I decided to do them in ink with watercolor, rather than my usual oil on canvas. The reason was that this allowed me to separate the drawing from color, which allowed me to get the shapes and features correctly positioned in relation to each other. It also let me use a very loose drawing pen over the underlying pencil drawing, which gave the drawings a lot of liveliness. Had I tried to do them in oil, each stroke would have defined both color and shape, which would have made it very difficult for me to tell what was wrong and how to fix it. And "fixing" it would probably have worked out most of the life from each of the pictures. I might still be working on them.

But the word I heard from the client is that these pictures have hit the mark. I'm really glad - both from a professional standpoint of creating good, accurate portraits, and from the personal standpoint of helping a young officer remember her troops.

Afghanistan Bound

2011-08-02T22:46:00.001-05:00

I have accepted an offer from the State Department to work in Afghanistan for a year. The current plan (subject to change) is for me to go to Washington early next month for training, and then to head down range to my new assignment at the end of September. I'll be working on a Field Engagement Team at one of the US or NATO bases. I don't know which team yet, and even if I did, it would probably change before I got there. These teams are made up of representatives from State, Defense, and various other departments. Their mission is to work with local officials and businesses to improve local conditions.

You might think I'm nuts, but I'm very excited about this opportunity. Why would anybody be excited about going someplace that is medieval at best and a dangerously hot war zone at worst? Well, for some of the same reasons that people have volunteered to go to Iraq, Haiti, Somalia, or other trouble spots. It's a chance to do something that makes an important difference to people's lives. It's an opportunity to participate in something much bigger than my own puny concerns. It's a national mission that has to be successful, for their sake and ours. And it's a difficult job that not many people can or would do, but it's one that I have the skills and experience for.

To be honest, going to Afghanistan was not my first choice. When I began my job search back in January, I focused on the US, particularly Asheville (where we now live), San Diego (where we have family and friends), and Washington, DC (which is the only place in the country with a strong economy). I wrote about my initial thoughts in a blog post in February and then in periodic updates after that. But while I found lots of interesting opportunities in the US, I never got so much a phone interview. Even though I had a lot of positive comments about my resume, and even when I could show solid accomplishments in everything listed in the job qualifications, I heard nothing except the occasional "job's been filled", "we're reviewing your qualifications", or "no, thanks". To say it was frustrating is an understatement.

But early on, I started applying for jobs in Afghanistan. Why? Well, frankly, I wanted to do something more important than just make money for some corporation, and while there were some great opportunities to make a contribution in the US, there weren't that many of them. The vast majority of openings that I could reasonably apply for were to fundamentally help some company make a profit. There's nothing wrong with that, and it could be argued that making a profit is what America is all about. But just making a profit has never excited me, which is probably why I never did as a professional artist. Instead, I needed something that provided a deeper meaning and purpose. The mission in Afghanistan not only did that, but it's something that I'm qualified to do.

And it was Afghanistan that finally came through for me. After months of hearing nothing back from my job applications, suddenly four organizations contacted me within two weeks. Each had a very different mission in Afghanistan and all of them were very cool. I decided to work with the Field Engagement Team in large part because it was a front-line mission. Although the other positions paid more, they were all support roles.

I can't say Janis is excited about my going away again, but she's a trooper. We've been through long deployments before, including my previous year and a half in Iraq, so we know what to expect. She'll do well.

So I'm getting ready to deploy one more time. I've filled out a ton of forms already, am fixing things around the house, making lists of things to be done in the next month and sometimes actually checking things off of it. It feels good to have something to work toward.

An Epic Fail

2011-07-29T15:53:00.001-05:00

I haven't made a post in a while because (a) I haven't been doing much worth writing about and (b) I've been watching the budget debacle in Washington unfold with some bated breath. (What is "bated breath", anyway? Is it like sticking worms in your mouth? Why would anybody want to do that?) I think most of us try to ignore Washington politicians as much as possible, maybe more and more each year. This year, however, what happens there has a very direct bearing on my job prospects (subject to a separate post very soon) and general economic well-being. What is happening in Washington right now is, unfortunately, not staying in Washington.

Back in October of last year, during that particularly nasty and deceptive election season, I took a look at the federal budget and wrote a very lengthy post about it here. Although the specific numbers have changed for the worse, the analysis and comments are as true now as they were then. The key points:
- The last time a Democratic President was in office (Bill Clinton, remember him?), we had a very healthy economy and a budget surplus that was projected to grow to about $900B by 2010. We could have paid down about half our national debt by now ...
- ... except George Bush and the Republicans changed all that. He literally gave away the federal surplus in the form of rebates, slashed taxes (particularly for the wealthy), got us into two wars, grew the size of the federal government, and expanded entitlements (especially the hyper-expensive Medicare prescription drug benefit, which was enacted without identifying where the funding would come from, over the objections of the Democrats). During Clinton's tenure, the federal budget grew 11%; during Bush's tenure, it grew by 104%.
- Since World War II, the federal government's share of the GDP has hovered around 18-20%. During Clinton's last years, both revenues and expenditures were balanced. When Bush left office, federal expenditures accounted for 24% of GDP while revenues were only 15%. We had a $1.4T deficit, which was almost the size of the entire federal budget just eight years earlier.
- Obama's two budgets have not changed those proportions significantly. Expenditures remained high and taxes remained low as part of a bipartisan effort to stimulate the economy out of a full-blown depression.
- To return the federal government to its normal level of about 20% of GDP, we would have to cut expenditures by over $600B per year and raise revenues by over $500B per year. Cuts would have to come from discretionary spending (including defense) as well as mandatory spending (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid being the big three categories).

Since I wrote that post, things have only gotten worse, and both Democrat and Republican lawmakers have been fiddling while Rome not only burned, but was sacked by the Vandals (aka, Tea Party). The budget process has gone from nasty to vicious to careening out of control. I blame the Tea Party. They have been arrogant and ignorant to amazing degrees, have shown no respect for anybody who does not agree with them (which is about 80-90% of the American people), and keep demanding more and more. Obama, Senator Reid, and the Democrats have, unfortunately, given in on nearly everything they demanded, including massive cuts in discretionary spending and entitlement programs, as well as no tax increase. Every time they do, the Tea Partiers just demand more. So far, their approach has been to DEMAND, DEMAND, DEMAND. No negotiation. No two-way discussions. No consideration for anybody else. Just "give me what I want or I'll wreck the economy."

Tom Friedman, the brilliant New York Times columnist, called them "the Hezbollah faction of the Republican Party". He's being overly kind.

So here we are, four days from economic Armageddon (if you believe the hype), and I see no sign that a deal will be reached. Note that "deal" is the word: there is no "compromise" anymore, just one side demanding unconditional surrender, and the other side trying to figure out how much to give away is too much. Frankly, I don't see any solution for the foreseeable future.

The ball is about to land squarely in Obama's court. Congress is not providing the financial means to carry out their own budget, so the Executive Branch will have to decide on its own how to proceed. And, contrary to what some Tea Partiers are saying, there is not enough coming in to cover what needs to be done. What'll happen?

I see one of two scenarios playing out. In one, President Obama will invoke the 14th Amendment, which states:
"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."
This amendment provides Obama with constitutional grounds to ignore the debt ceiling limit, which is a law that is being used for political purposes in a way that violates the Constitution. He could tell the Treasury to go ahead and continue borrowing as needed. Obama has indicated that he doesn't particularly like this option, but he has not specifically ruled it out, either.

The other scenario is much more Machiavellian. I have heard several political pundits say that Obama is the master of the "rope-a-dope", giving opponents lots of room to hang themselves. Possibly that's what is going on now. With the Tea Party not giving in on anything, Obama might just let them have what they say they want: a situation where the federal government can only spend what it takes in. In last October's post, I noted that once you subtract mandatory spending (required by law) from revenues, there's only about $200B left for all government functions; but once you add in defense expenditures, you're running a half-trillion-dollar deficit before you spend a dime on anything else. Since we don't bring in enough to fund our legal requirements plus defense plus anything else that the government is responsible for, the Tea Party's position would soon be exposed for the fraud that it is.

This would be a very painful lesson for the nation to learn. It's similar to the approach that Roosevelt used prior to World War II: he knew that war was inevitable, but also that the nation would not mobilize effectively without a major shock. I don't think he knew that Pearl Harbor was going to happen, but something would, and the public wouldn't swing to his support until it did. He was right. In this case, Obama might be giving the Tea Party what they want, knowing that the shock will awaken the country to the truth behind their claims.

I don't know that that's what's going on in the White House. It seems like an expensive gamble to take. But we'll see what happens here in just a few days.

New Wheels

2011-07-16T11:17:00.004-05:00

We got a new set of wheels the other day. I hadn't really planned on it happening, but sometimes life throws things at you and you have to jump.

To set the stage: for ten years, our two cars were a 2000 Land Rover Discovery and a 2000 Ford Ranger pickup. Last year, we sold the Land Rover and bought a Volvo V70 station wagon. We figured that the Land Rover was getting up there in miles (about 170,000) and it was going to get expensive at some indefinite time in the future. Then some friends decided to sell their beautiful Volvo, which Janis loved, so we sold the Discovery and bought the Volvo. It was pretty luxurious, got great gas mileage, and has many years of life left in it. All was well with the world.

Until last winter. Not only were we were clobbered with snow, but Janis started a pet-sitting business and some of her clients had driveways that absolutely required a 4WD vehicle to get up and down. Suddenly, the decision to sell the Discovery didn't look so good - maybe we should have kept it and sold the Ranger instead. But we hadn't and were stuck with the decision.

Now I'm going to be heading off to a new job soon (that'll be another blog post) and we're getting ourselves positioned for what's about to come. One of the decisions was whether to get a 4WD or AWD vehicle. Buying a new car was not on my list, but Janis felt strongly that she needed something that would get her around in another wicked winter. Suddenly, buying a new car was on my list. We looked at a lot of possibilities: trade in the Volvo for a good used SUV of some sort, buy a beater 4WD Jeep, or swap the old Ranger for something newer. We finally decided to replace the Ranger. A new(er) Ranger was out of the question: mine had been reliable, but Ford hasn't updated it in over 12 years and it's an antique design. Full-size trucks like the F150 are now the size that semi's used to be and they suck gas like it's water. After a lot of research, I thought the Nissan Frontier was going to be the best choice. It has a 300 hp V6, 4WD, excellent reliability, lots of room, and gets better gas mileage than my old Ranger.

So I started looking for a Frontier. A few days ago, I spotted an ad for one near here, in Boone, NC. It had what we looking for, plus it was a 2008 with only 12,000 miles on it, one owner, and a clean CarFax. Turns out the previous owner (actually, a leaser) was a guy with a big vacation home near Boone and only used it when he was in town. We went up to take a look, I drove it, and was hooked. We came home with it that night.

So now I have a new toy. It's in great shape, but there are a few things that I want to do with it, like put in a stereo unit that'll play my iPod, put a fiberglass lid on the bed, add a trailer hitch, and so on. Lots to do, but it doesn't have to be done right now. Before I get into personalizing the Frontier, I have to sell the Ranger. It's been a great truck and I'll be sad to see it go, but it doesn't meet our needs anymore.

Psst! Wanna buy a great used Ranger?

Life Drawing

2011-07-13T07:17:00.004-05:00

Ann

Graphite on paper, 8"x10"

I went to a life drawing session on Monday night for the first time in three months. It felt good to get the eye and hand moving again, and I wasn't quite as rusty as expected.

Our model was a very interesting woman. She has been fighting cancer for some time and her body shows it: scars, no hair, and lots of lumps and bumps. Although her body shows it, her spirit doesn't. She's a bright, active, and cheerful woman who is enjoying her life and beating cancer. She chatted away with us about pretty much anything that popped into mind.

This was Ann's first time as a model. Although she's an artist, she'd never been to a life-drawing session before, even as a participant, and didn't know what to expect. Her decision to model was apparently driven by several factors. It was a way to confront the disease, to say "here I am, here are my scars, this is what cancer has done to me, and I'm still here." I think this is a brave thing to do for anybody. Our popular culture is so concerned with physical perfection that to show one's own very "imperfect" body, particularly one that has been mangled, takes a lot of fortitude.

In addition to confronting the disease, modeling was also a way to become comfortable with her own body. I think it's a bit frightening for a first-time model to step up on the stand and remove his or her robe in front of a crowd of strangers. What will these people do? Will they run from the room screaming in terror? Will they laugh? Will they accept me? It's a very scary moment. Imagine yourself in that situation and you'll get an idea of what a first-time model goes through. Contrary to popular belief, very few models are exhibitionists, in my experience, so something like nude modeling does not come naturally. I've had a number of models tell me that it helped them become more confident and comfortable, not only with their bodies, but with who they were.

It occurred to me that Ann is experiencing the same sort of thing that our wounded veterans are. Through no choice of their own, her body has been severely damaged and will show the damage for the rest of her life. But like most of the wounded vets, she's accepted the challenge, is fighting back, and making the most of it. I've painted wounded vets before as a personal and political statement. On Monday, I met a "wounded vet" that I'd like to paint just to celebrate her own personal victory.

And this was just an ordinary life drawing session.

Jackson

2011-07-09T07:41:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted any pictures of my grandson in too long. Time to fix that!

These were taken at their recent vacation at Lake Powell. The little guy is growing up quite fast, isn't he?

July 4th

2011-07-05T10:40:00.003-05:00

I love a good July 4th. Ours, yesterday, was pretty perfect: a postcard of what it's like to live in America.

I got to do some painting for the first time in two months. It's a small image of our back yard. Exciting? Full of meaning? Deep and philosophical? Nope. My skills are pretty rusty at the moment, so this was just a simple exercise in putting paint on canvas again. I love our little back yard: our deck, the table and chairs, the plants, grass, trees, and all the little things that Janis has done to spruce it up. So I thought it would be fun to work from life, what artists call alla prima. Shortly after I got the thing blocked in, though, a thunderstorm moved in and made working in the backyard impossible. So I relocated into the garage and continued. After about two or three hours, the painting was about 60% completed. I'll try to finish it up this afternoon.

Last night, we went with our neighbors to the Asheville Tourists baseball game. What can be more American than baseball, foot-long brats, and locally-brewed beer? I really like going to minor-league games. They're fun, without the expense, stress, and crowds of a major-league outing. Ten bucks buys you a great seat. The staff puts on silly games between innings like three-legged races and "Jeopardy"-like questions with "gimme" answers, with prizes such as $10 off your next oil change at the local Kia dealer. Little kids are welcome, and who cares if they're not paying any attention to the game? Most adults aren't, either. They're probably people-watching, or drinking copious amounts of the locally-brewed beer, or yakking with their friends.

This being the Fourth, there were some extra features. The Asheville-Buncombe Community Christian Ministry (ABCCM) was the night's sponsor. ABCCM works with homeless people, particularly veterans. A few years ago, ABCCM bought and refurbished a defunct motel into a home for vets. They house and help the vets get back on their feet and re-integrated into the community. Last year, they helped 300 go from jobless and homeless to employed and living on their own. A commendable group. So, as the night's sponsor, ABCCM got to put out their message several times and arranged for some very nice ceremonies honoring vets.

Right in front of us were an old couple, probably in their 80's. She was in a wheelchair and he could barely stand, let alone walk. But during the National Anthem, they both stood up. They were leaning on their chairs and leaning on each other, but by God, they stood up for the National Anthem. How great is that?

July 4th is important to us for another reason. It's Soozee and Indy's birthday. Our two little dogs turned 8 years old yesterday. So I visited a certain booth at the stadium and during the game the announcer wished the twins a very happy birthday. Very cool!

It's an Asheville Tourists tradition to have a game on July 4th, followed by fireworks. And they put on a pretty good show. Unfortunately, the Tourists got beat, 7-3, but they played their hearts out. The fireworks after the game brought out the ooh's and aaah's and a big round of applause at the end. We got out of the stadium and on the road with no fuss at all and home to Soozee and Indy, where we had to throw their balls around for about an hour before they would settle down. But hey, it was their birthday, so they deserved it.

All in all, pretty perfect. Hope you had an equally fine holiday!

An Open Letter to SEN Richard Burr

2011-06-30T12:02:00.002-05:00

Here's the text of a letter I just sent to my Republican senator:

"I am extremely concerned about the current game of "chicken" that is currently playing out in Washington over the budget impasse. While cutting expenditures is certainly a part of any responsible solution, so is raising taxes.

Since World War 2, federal expenditures have averaged about 20% of the nation's GDP. Tax revenues have generally averaged a point below that. Under President Bush and the Republican leadership since 2000, expenditures have jumped to about 24% of GDP and revenues have fallen to about 15%. This was, and remains, irresponsible.

Moreover, the Republican mantra that tax cuts for the wealthy stimulate jobs is patently false. There has been a steady shift of wealth from the middle class (including me) to the wealthy (including you) since the Reagan administration. The top 1% now control about 42% of the nation's wealth and, due to breaks like low rates on capital gains, pay less in taxes. Moreover, the rich DO NOT create jobs. That is done by small businesses and mom-and-pop entrepreneurs. Wealthy people are sitting on trillions of dollars in Wall Street investments and are not circulating this money in the economy where it is needed.

The rich are getting a free ride in America and the Republicans are their champions. It is time to change that mantra for the good of the country. Therefore, any responsible solution to the debt problem MUST include tax increases.

Do not drive this country into bankruptcy to protect tax cuts for the rich. It's stupid."

Profound Questions

2011-06-24T16:03:00.003-05:00

One of my LinkedIn groups had this interesting question posted this morning: "If you had to do it all over again, would you choose your present career?" I read the responses and was very surprised to see mostly negative comments. So many people were not happy with their careers or with the way their lives had turned out. It gave me something to think about. I'm a pretty happy guy by nature and generally assume that most everybody else is, too. A dangerous assumption, I know, but that's my default setting. So when I bump into evidence that my defaults are faulty, it gets my mind going.

I immediately answered the question with this:

If I had to do it all over again, I'd do the same things, absolutely. I was a naval officer for 22 years and did some neat things with wonderful people in some unbelievable situations. Then I became an artist, a completely different universe, loved it and was very good at it. But the art market has collapsed and the things I need to paint are not the things that sell, so I'm looking for an opportunity to make a living while contributing something positive to the world. It'll come. One thing I've learned is that the best things in my life haven't been the things that I planned for, they've been the unexpected: the career field that I never heard of until I stumbled into it, an assignment I never would have asked for, and the woman who came into my life right when I specifically wasn't looking. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat!

Then I went out to do some mowing. Mowing is a great time to do some thinking. It's a physical activity that doesn't take a lot of brainpower: follow the pattern, make sure to overlap the passes, and that's about it. So I thought about the LinkedIn question and why it is I was able to answer it that way.

Way back when (about 1969), my first job was with a food producer. It was a small shop that was set up to experiment with making sausage biscuits and see if they could do it profitably. I was clueless, just a 16-year-old teenager with no skills hired on as general labor for part of a summer. The older guys, who had all been doing general labor for years, even decades, took me under their wing. They showed me how to work hard and carry my weight. None had been to college and only a few had completed high school. Most of them were black, and for a middle-class white kid who grew up in the segregated south, this was an eye-opener. I learned a lot: that people could be smart even if they're not educated, that the people doing the work generally knew more about how to get the job done than the boss did, and that most people wanted to work hard and be respected for what they could do.

Those lessons were reinforced later when I went to work as a waiter at a Red Lobster. My trainer was an older black woman named Rosa. She was skinny as a rail with a beehive hairdo and more energy than anybody else in the restaurant. Rosa hustled. She was always two steps ahead of the game. Rosa was the best waitress in the place and always made more in tips than everybody else. Always. From her, I learned a lot about taking care of my customers, how to give them my attention without being obsequious, and how to monitor seventeen things going on at once. (Are my orders up? The hostess just seated a party of six at my table - need to get their water and forks to them now. This lady needs a refill on her tea. That kid just dumped his plate on the floor - get the bucket over here. How are we on rolled utensils? The coffeepot is almost empty - make a new one.) And teamwork. We all had to work together to get the job done. If anybody was slacking, it affected everybody else, because the pace was intense.

Good life lessons for a kid just out of high school.

So what does all this have to do with the LinkedIn question? Well, a career is a reflection of life in general. I had a good career in the Navy, a good career as an artist, several good careers as a student of various kinds, and a good "career" as a program/project manager in Iraq. Some careers paid better than others, but all of them were very rewarding. The reason is that it's all about people. The lessons I learned from the sausage biscuit factory and the Red Lobster stayed with me throughout all my careers. Treat your business associates, customers, and staff with respect, carry your weight and then some, and focus on the team, and you'll do well. The specific career field is almost incidental.

Monday Afternoon Musings

2011-06-20T17:42:00.003-05:00

It's been a busy time here at the Rohde household this past week. The big news is that I suddenly have three organizations interested in hiring me. I'm filling out forms now, and next week will be flying out for an interview. All three jobs are very different, but they have one thing in common: they're all in Afghanistan. Yes, Afghanistan. Some time ago, I wrote that I seem to be qualified for only two jobs: either running multi-million-dollar projects in some war-torn country, or wearing a blue vest and saying "Welcome to Wal-Mart". Well, Wal-Mart isn't hiring, so it looks like it's Afghanistan!

For many people, learning that you're going to A'stan would be terrible news, but not for me. There's something about deployments that gets into your blood. It's working in places that most sane people don't want to go, doing things most people don't want to do, but doing a mission that needs to be done. I'm pretty good at it, too. On the flip side, the separation is a strain, but Janis and I know that we can handle it.

Any one of these opportunities will help us achieve another goal, which is to move to San Diego. Janis lived there until my transfer took us away 20 years ago, and I've been hearing about it ever since. Now that we have a young grandson, it's time to go back. Yes, it's expensive and crowded and will someday fall off into the Pacific, but too bad. We gotta go. This tour in A'stan will provide the kick to get us there. As soon as it's confirmed that I'm going, we'll put the house up for sale and start the process.

So now I have to talk with these three organizations and see which ones (a) will actually offer a job that (b) I really want to take. Three interests does not a deployment make.

Speaking of San Diego, Janis is going out there soon to see her friends and family. I get to stay home and be a single Dad to our two dogs for two weeks. If all goes well, maybe Janis will be able to start looking around for a place to live out there.

Meanwhile, here at home, we've had several waves of storms sweep through. Back in May, we had two hailstorms and some hellacious rain. Over the past week, we've had several storms with blasts of wind and more drenching rain. My neighbor had three of his four Bradford pear trees split in half a couple of days ago. I had two big branches from my dogwood break off and land halfway across the yard. Last night, the top 15' of one of my birches was blown off. I spent a couple hours today cleaning that one up. Let's hope that the storms are gone - they're no fun! The good news: my roof survived the hail, and the big trees around the house withstood all the wind.

On a lighter note, we saw a wonderful movie the other night: "The Triplets of Belleville". It's an odd French animated film, very funny, very creative, and beautifully drawn. In fact, the drawing alone is reason to see it. I could look at it frame-by-frame and be perfectly happy.

The movie trailer is on YouTube, of course (actually, the whole movie is), but I recommend that you put it on your Netflix queue and see it on a bigger screen. We loved it and you might, too!

Thoughts on the New Navy

2011-06-18T07:04:00.003-05:00

An article in the Washington Post today caught my eye. It discussed a disturbing trend: too many Commanding Officers are being fired this year for personal misconduct. As trends go, this one is all over the board. The CO's are on ships, submarines, air squadrons, and shore sites. They're men and women. They've been fired for inappropriate relationships, hostile command climates, alcohol, raunchy movies, and more. An article in the Navy Times provides specific names and limited details.

As a former Navy Commanding Officer, I'm disturbed by these reports. They raise some serious questions. What's going on with the CO's? Is something failing in their professional development? Are they just being stupid all at once? From the information in the two articles, I can't tell.

There is no single thread running through these firings. One, heavily reported in the press, was the CO of the Enterprise. When he was the Executive Officer (XO, the #2 position on the ship) of the ship, he participated in making some raunchy and inappropriate videos. Stupid. The CO of an attack squadron was fired after being caught DUI. Stupid. The CO of an amphibious ship (female) allowed hazing and used a loaded weapon in a dangerous manner. Stupid. The CO of a submarine mishandled classified information and tried to cover it up. Stupid. The Commodore of a destroyer squadron had a relationship with another officer's wife. Stupid.

It's not just CO's. The Navy Times article lists XO's and Senior Enlisted Advisors as well. These two individuals, along with the CO, establish the climate in the command. If they screw up, it's almost as serious as a CO screwup.

The military has a long tradition of holding its leaders to higher standards. There's a reason: leadership is more important to success than technology, sheer knowledge, or anything else. In the Navy, lives depend on a senior officer's leadership on a daily basis. The sea is a very unforgiving place and when something happens, the CO and his leaders have to have the unquestioned trust and respect of the crew. Naval officers are raised with this awareness from the day they enter the service and it's pounded into them throughout their career.

Now, people are people, with all their foibles, weaknesses, and quirks, and CO's are no different. I've certainly worked with some quirky senior officers in my career and some might say I'm quirky, too. But as a CO, you have to step up to the plate and recognize that you're held to a much higher standard. These individuals, for whatever reason, messed up. Maybe it was a single bad decision, maybe it was for a pattern of behavior over a long period of time, but they didn't uphold the standard. So they were fired. For an officer, that's it: your career is over and you may as well resign. Otherwise, you'll be manning an unimportant desk buried in some unimportant job, while everybody around you knows that you didn't measure up.

On the one hand, I'm happy to see that the Navy is still holding CO's accountable for their actions, and holding them to the same high standards they always have. That's the good news. The bad news is that a lot of CO's right now aren't measuring up. Why? I don't know. But anybody who aspires to be a CO (which, in my opinion, should be every officer) should take a lesson from all these firings. Substandard performance just doesn't cut it.

Groundhog Week

2011-06-10T17:22:00.004-05:00

It occurred to me that lately I have written very little about what I've been doing. I can sum most of my waking hours up in two words: job search. That's not a very exciting topic. I search. I find something that looks interesting. I research the company, the position, the location, whatever. I tweak the resume, write a cover letter, and submit an application. Log it into my application records. Start searching again.

Like most of the country, this past month has been unbelievably hot. We've been running 10-15 degrees above normal for several weeks now, and it feels more like August than May/June. That means I do my yard work in the morning, before it heats up, and then do the computer work in the afternoon.

Speaking of yard work, my wife has been bugging me to take the weedeater to several spots in the yard. Since our weedeater is a low-cost low-quality POS that hasn't been used since last July, that meant it needed some maintenance first. So I spent about $40 for parts and six hours in labor to rebuild the carburetor, replace the fuel lines, clean the air filter, put in a new spark plug, and make sure everything was adjusted correctly. And now, of course, it won't run at all. So got out the yard gloves and a pair of scissors and spent about 15 minutes cutting down the weeds that the weedeater was intended for.

With the hot weather come summertime afternoon storms. We've had them nearly every day for a week. One of my dogs, Indy, is scared to death of thunder.

So when the thunder and rain start, Indy's in my lap. As she is right now, as a matter of fact. Makes it hard to type on the keyboard.

The River Arts District Association in Asheville is holding its semi-annual Studio Stroll this weekend. This will be the first time in years that I haven't been participating in it, one way or another, and I'm not going to miss it at all. In fact, I'm going to enjoy it. Tomorrow, I'm going down to the District and will actually do the Stroll. Rather than being tied to my studio all weekend long, I'm going to wander to everybody else's studio and see all the wonderful work that's being done down there. So if you're in Asheville this weekend, go down to the River Arts District and see some great art. You just won't see mine this time!

Veterans Unemployment

2011-06-05T11:33:00.004-05:00

A number of articles recently have focused on the disturbing fact that the unemployment rate for veterans is significantly higher than it is for non-veterans. I just read a piece in the Navy Times about it, but the Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times (really good), Yahoo.com, and many more have also published articles on the subject. Young veterans from the post-9/11 world have an unemployment rate in general of over 20%. In some areas of the country, though, it's over 40%. Vets who've been out in the civilian world for a while have a much lower rate, indicating that most of them were able to make the transition and build solid civilian resumes before the recession hit. Those making the transition now, though, are having an extremely hard time.

As everybody knows, the current employment situation (to use a highly technical term) sucks. Unemployment remains high and shows no sign of improvement anytime soon. A new report says that only 54,000 new jobs were created last month. This is about 150,000 less than needed to keep up with population growth, much less recover from the 8,000,000 jobs lost during the recession (thank you, Wall Street). So anybody who's in the job market faces an uphill battle.

For companies that are looking to hire, they're in the catbird seat. They often get over 100 applications for any decent position, so they can specify in great detail what kind of candidate they think they want. And so they do. Most of the job descriptions I see have a laundry list of required qualifications: highly specialized training, certification in this or that field, X number of years experience doing exactly the job that they're hiring for, and so on. Years ago, when I saw such lists of requirements, I could assume with some certainty that they already had a candidate in mind and were just going through the job announcement motions for legal or CYA reasons. Now, though, they'll probably have a number of candidates to choose from.

But are these really the characteristics they should be looking for? Not necessarily. I think that a truly successful employee is successful because of other reasons: dedication, drive, flexibility, perseverance, teamwork, leadership skills, and loyalty, to name a few. Yet these characteristics are almost never mentioned. It seems as if employers are missing the person in their search for a specialized technical widget. In my experience, technical skills can be learned relatively quickly by a reasonably-intelligent person with a reasonably-applicable background. But it's the personal characteristics that will make the new employee a success or not.

Our young veterans have those personal characteristics that civilian employers should be looking for. Just the fact that they successfully completed their service, whether for 3 or 30 years, shows that they have dedication drive, flexibility, perseverance, teamwork, leadership skills, and loyalty. They may not have the latest CISSP or PMP certification because they spent three of the past five years in Iraq or Afghanistan, getting impossible jobs done under arduous conditions.

I agree that much of the onus is on the veteran to translate his/her military experience into terms that a civilian can understand. Over the past several months, I've gotten a lot better at doing that. Still, civilian employers need to be more aware of what it is they're asking for. If all they're asking for are technical widgets, well, be careful what you ask for. If they're looking for people who can do amazing things, then look at the veterans.

I just don't want to see a bumper sticker that says: "WE PROUDLY SUPPORT OUR TROOPS. WE JUST DON'T HIRE THEM."

Thoughts on Bosnia

2011-05-29T15:36:00.005-05:00

Good news from the Balkans: a couple of days ago, Serbian police arrested Ratko Mladic. He was the leader of Serbian paramilitary forces during the horrible Bosnian conflict of the early '90's, and the one responsible for the slaughter of 8,000 people in Srebrenica in July, 1995. Even better, the Serbian police forces put down a small protest riot today by ultra-nationalist Serbs who were demanding his release. Mladic will soon be sent to the Hague to stand trial for war crimes. This marks a milestone, a finish line of sorts, to the Bosnian war.

I was in Sarajevo in the spring of 1996 as part of the Operation Joint Endeavor peacekeeping forces. I was part of a small team providing intelligence support to the NATO commander, Admiral Leighton Smith, and a few select senior leaders. Our team had a unique ringside seat to the negotiations and maneuvering between NATO, the various nations that made up NATO forces, the Serbians, the Bosnian Muslims, the Croats, and the UN. This was soon after the ceasefire had been established. The fighting had officially stopped, but peace had definitely not broken out, and keeping things under control meant walking a tightrope.

A great many people at that time were demanding that NATO capture Mladic, along with Radovan Karadzic, the political leader of the Serbians. This pressure began to build, to the point that many, even in the NATO forces, assumed that we were getting ready to mount an operation to nab them. Frankly, it would not have been that hard. Admiral Smith, though, refused to do it. He had good reason. We had a very close call in the spring when a low-level Serbian general took a wrong turn, blundered into a NATO checkpoint, and was arrested. The Serbians were furious and came within a heartbeat of pulling out of the peace process. Somehow, they were persuaded to stay, and eventually were convinced that the general really did just take a wrong turn and that it wasn't a planned NATO operation. But this event showed just how tenuous the whole situation was. Admiral Smith knew that if we gone after Karadzic and Mladic, the peace process would have collapsed and the Balkans plunged back into civil war. His view was that we were there to establish the peace. That came first. Whatever justice was to be meted out would have to wait until it could be done without bringing ruin.

That time is now. Radovan Karadzic was arrested three years ago and is currently being held in the Hague. Now Ratko Mladic has been brought in. Just a few years ago, his arrest would have brought down the Serbian government. Now, though, it just provoked a relatively small protest with a few hundred people that was contained by Serbian police.

When Yugoslavia collapsed, it did so very quickly, and when it went violent, it did so even more quickly. It has taken 15 years to get to the point where the arrest of former Serbian leaders can be done without destroying the country. Similarly, when our government made the decision to go to war against Afghanistan and then Iraq, it did so very quickly, but the process of building the peace is still ongoing nine years later. This has always been the case: wars can come quickly, but the recovery often takes decades.

Food for thought on this Memorial Day.

"No Bad Wine" Day

2011-05-25T14:30:00.004-05:00

Two years ago today, we lost three amazing men. Terry Barnich, Maged Hussein, and Navy Commander Duane Wolfe were killed when their vehicle hit an IED outside of Fallujah, Iraq. Terry and Maged were friends of mine. We worked together in the Iraq Transition Assistance Office (ITAO) at the US Embassy. They were, literally, our two finest, and their deaths hit all of us who knew them very hard. I wrote about them in a blog post here.

Terry had a close call once before. During one of the innumerable rocket attacks on the Green Zone and Embassy, a piece of spent shrapnel hit him on his nose. After thinking about it, he announced that life was short and that he would never drink bad wine again. And he didn't.

Memorial Day is coming up soon. It was not created as an excuse for furniture sales, it was to remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Most of us think of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines on this date (if we think of them at all), but you should include civilians as well. A life given for our country is a life given, no matter what clothes they wear.

For me, though, Memorial Day is a day to remember those losses in the aggregate. I knew Maged and Terry personally, and saving their remembrance for Memorial Day doesn't seem right. So I've set aside May 25th, the day they were killed, as my own personal day of remembrance. And, in honor of Terry's credo, I've tagged it as National "No Bad Wine" day.

So right now, I'm sitting here with a glass of fine 2007 Cabernet. I've also got a glass of iced fresh water in honor of Maged, who was in charge of our water development projects. Two men forever in my memory. Here's to you, guys.

Disney and SEAL Team 6

2011-05-13T20:13:00.005-05:00

I just read that the Disney company has trademarked "SEAL Team 6". That is just so disgustingly wrong. What the hell are they thinking? They have no right to that name at all. None. Basically, they're stealing the good name of the best fighting team in the whole world. Why? To make a few bucks, of course. What are they going to do, have a SEAL Team 6 ride at Disneyworld? Give the yokels a roller-coaster ride that ends with an image of bin Laden's head getting blown off? Have Mickey Mouse run around with an M16 and a kevlar helmet?

The SEALs put their lives on the line every day. Now Disney is taking their name and making money off it.

Disney is scum. 'Nuff said.

My New (Temporary) Studio

2011-05-13T14:32:00.002-05:00

Here's my new temporary studio. Looks a lot like a garage, doesn't it? Yeah, nothing like oil drips and snow shovels to make an artist feel right at home.

I moved out of my studio at the end of April. It was a pretty big job getting everything packed up, sold, given away, thrown away, and moved into a storage unit. Then I had to get the storage unit organized so that I could actually find things. (Photo of the storage unit forthcoming). Then I had to take care of a lot of other things, so today was the first day I actually set up my easel and an unfinished painting and slopped some paint. It felt pretty good to be able to do that. Did I do any good? Not really. It takes a while to get the rhythm going. At least I was able to put the finishing touches on this painting, sign it, declare victory, and get ready to move on to the next one.

My main occupation these days is job hunting. Part of it is going well: I'm finding lots of interesting jobs. The problem is, none of them are finding me. It's a very frustrating, maddening experience. The job deck is stacked against the job hunter these days, and the old rules ("old" being anything older than 3 years) no longer apply.

One of the things that has really hit home is that resumes have to be written for the specific opening. Generic resumes don't work. The reason is that most employers are now using automated systems that scan your resume and (maybe) your cover letter for specific keywords. The keywords are different for each job and, of course, you don't know what they are. Your best guide is the job announcement itself. So you take your resume and cut/paste/reorganize it to match what the job announcement says they're looking for, using as many of their specific words as possible. That will, hopefully, get your resume past the automated system and into the hot little hands of a real person.

Another is that each halfway-decent job announcement will get dozens, or hundreds, of applications. With so many people looking for work (thank you, Wall Street), the competition is really fierce. So your resume has to out-shine not only the next guy's, but a whole boatload of others as well.

Even if the resume is top-notch, you may be cut out for really bullshit reasons. There was one really cool job where I made the first cut. The next step was to take a written test. Yes, this was a government position, no civilian company that I'm aware of requires written tests. The test could only be taken in person, in their HR shop. I suggested that they email me the test, or mail it to a contact in the Asheville city government and they could administer it, but no. Had to be there or else. So it was "else". They could afford to be dickheads because there were so many people applying.

Lots of job-hunting guides tell you to network, to meet people working in the company that you want to work for, and establish personal connections. That's fine if you're living in a major city and not planning on relocating. But I live in Asheville, which is one of the 10 worst cities for finding a job, and I'm planning on going somewhere else. Our goal is San Diego, where we have family, or possibly some other place if needed. You can't personally network from a couple thousand miles away. I'm doing what I can with emails, social networking, and phone calls, but distance is definitely an issue.

On a personal note, I find myself getting angry with TV and print advertisements. It's like they're rubbing salt into my jobless wound. Yes, I would love to buy a new Mustang, but I need a job first. All these ads are populated by sleek, well-dressed people, and the message I'm getting is "this stuff is for successful people, and you're NOT". In my head, I know that's not right, but that's the feeling I get anyway.

So I keep going. Get up, search for jobs, network, send out notes, work on an application for several hours, fire it off and forget it. Repeat. Something will break for us.

Marwencol

2011-05-09T22:20:00.006-05:00

The Dispatch Rider

Photo by Mark Hogancamp

I just watched the film "Marwencol". I thought it was a stunning, thought-provoking, and insightful documentary. The backstory: Mark Hogancamp, a heavy drinker, was assaulted outside a bar one night by five men. They beat him so badly that he was in a coma for nine days. His face was smashed, his memory gone, his personality permanently altered, and he had to learn to walk again. Dumped from the hospital and then from therapy when Medicaid wouldn't pay anymore, Mark created his own therapy. He invented the town of Marwencol, located in Belgium in World War II. It is peopled by 1/6-scale dolls that Mark dresses, poses, and photographs, as they act out situations and stories. The photos have been exhibited in New York galleries, and caught the attention of filmmakers who created this documentary.

All the above is true and accurate. But it doesn't capture the power of this film. It is gripping on so many levels. On one, it is a story about traumatic brain injury (TBI). Mark was damaged in the same way that so many of our soldiers have been: his brain was badly battered and will never completely heal. You see him struggling with the simple task of walking, five years after the attack. You see him trying to make sense of his world and try to relate to people when he can't think the same way others do.

On another level, it is the story of a lonely individual who is trying to connect with others. He vaguely remembers being married at one time, but that is now gone. Now he wants to love and be loved, but he can't. Part of the reason is the TBI; part may be something else that the filmmakers decided not to touch upon. So Mark lives out his desires through the "people" of Marwencol.

On still another level, it is the story of art as therapy. Mark started down the road that led to Marwencol by a lucky accident, and he continued because he had to. He was dropped from Medicaid and had nothing else. Fortunately for him, Marwencol worked. Creating the town, the "people", and the stories gave him a world in which he could live. He could be a strong man, love a woman, fight evil (especially the attackers), be independent, and do the things that he couldn't do in real life.

And it's a story about art. Where does art come from? Watching Mark Hogencamp, I thought of Vincent Van Gogh, another individual with mental issues who created amazing images. The filmmakers discussed Mark's images as powerful images in their own right. There are other contemporary artists who photograph dolls, manikins, or other such stand-ins for real people, but virtually all of them do it in an ironic way. "It's a soldier! No, it's a doll (wink wink)". Mark's work has no irony in it whatsoever, something that I think is wonderful. Irony is over-rated, and I say that as somebody who has done a whole series of ironic paintings. If making art is a way of understanding your world, then Mark is a master. If you're an artist, are you willing to go the distance that he has?

And there are still other stories to the film, such as what led to the assault in the first place, who the "people" in Marwencol are, and even where the name "Marwencol" came from. If you're interested in brain injury, art as therapy, art as art, or just interested in a gripping story of somebody trying to make sense out of their life, see this movie. Put it on your Netflix queue. It's well worth watching.

Guillermo Munoz Vera

2011-05-05T21:51:00.007-05:00

Even though I've closed my art studio, I'm still an artist, and still interested in seeing what other painters are doing. One of my monthly rituals is to go through the newest issue of Art in America magazine and flag the pages with interesting images. Then I google those artists and study their work. Sometimes there are lots of artists to research, sometimes only one or two. Lately there have been very few, which was making me discouraged, but the newest issue has several.

One of them is Guillermo Munoz Vera, who has a show at the Forum Gallery. This gallery tends toward traditionally-executed, highly representational works. Guillermo's current exhibit is an unusual one: it's made up of about 20 hyper-realistic paintings, all on the theme of European voyages of discovery in the 16th century.

The Cartographer

Oil on canvas

As expected of the Forum gallery, these paintings are exceptionally well done. Besides the unusual theme, several other details caught my eye. For one, all of these paintings were done in 2010 and 2011. Most of them are quite large. That's a hell of a lot of painting to get done in a short period of time. When I looked him up on the 'net, it appears that this is his normal pace. Even allowing for the use of projectors to assist in drawing and color selection, this guy is cranking. I can't do that. I poke along and can work on one painting for months.

For another, I'm wondering where he gets his reference materials. Many arrangements can be staged in a studio, but some of them can't. Cape Horn, for instance, is a large (59"x59") painting of a 16th-century Spanish sailing vessel that's pounding through rough seas under a stormy sky. When you look at the details of the rigging, spray, and so forth, that's not roughed in, it's photographically accurate. He had to base it on photos of a real ship, but exactly how is beyond me.

Guillermo Vera doesn't normally work on historical paintings. Do a google search for his images and you'll see that he's done photo-realistic work of people, interiors, landscapes, Cuban cars, and more. Here's one that resonated with me:

Maia with Kalashnikov AK-47

Oil on canvas

Jolting, isn't it? I'd love to see this work in person.

Just as I don't do abstracts, I don't do photo-realistic works. I like to make representational paintings that are still about painting, where the visible brush strokes are an important part of the finished piece. But I appreciate well-done abstract and photo-realistic paintings. Munoz's are extremely well done. I just wish I could get to New York to see the show.

Osama bin Laden

2011-05-02T14:22:00.004-05:00

By now, the whole world knows that Osama bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEALs last night in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Information is still coming out and we'll probably never know many of the true details of the operation. Still, this is a time to congratulate the unnamed (and un-nameable) intelligence analysts who worked for ten years to piece together the details that led to finding bin Laden. We must also congratulate the unnamed (and un-nameable) Special Operations forces that planned and executed the attack. The dedication, professionalism, and tenacity of these individuals is what led to yesterday's successes. Raise a toast in their honor: they deserve it.

The disclosure of bin Laden's location raises a ton of questions about Pakistan, however. For years, Pakistani leaders, including Pervez Musharraf (former military strongman and President) and Asif Ali Zardari (current President) have said that bin Laden was not in Pakistan; and if he was, he was probably in Waziristan, the lawless area along the border with Afghanistan. Last night proved them wrong. Bin Laden was "hiding" in a huge house in a highly populated area only 40 miles from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. His compound was within a short walking distance of the headquarters of a regiment of the Pakistani army. The house was a fortress: eight times the size of anything else in the area, surrounded by tall walls topped with barbed wire. Does this sound like he was particularly worried about the Pakistani government finding him? It's like finding Adolf Hitler "hiding" in a fortress in Frederick, Maryland.

No, I think this proves the Pakistani lie. Their intelligence agency, the ISI, helped establish the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The ISI has always been a bit of a rogue element, outside the control of the President and even, to a certain extent, the military. At the same time that we've been providing Pakistan with aid and assistance over the years, we've been leaning on them to rein in the ISI. They've been giving us lip service, saying one thing while doing the opposite. While telling the world that they were "searching" for bin Laden, they were instead practically treating him as a guest of honor. Now they have world-class egg on their faces, as well they should have. Their lie is exposed.

Apparently, not all Pakistanis are in league with the ISI. President Obama last night mentioned that it was Pakistani information that led to the discovery of the compound. The wording, however, indicates to me that it was individual Pakistanis who passed the information, not official government agencies who are supposed to be working with us.

So what do we do with Pakistan now? Cut all aid and support, tell them to go screw themselves? No. We need them and they need us. Most importantly, we need to maintain a good handle on what's going on in that country. To be blunt, I think the only reason we're still involved in Afghanistan is because Pakistan, right next door, is a nuclear power that's teetering on the brink of falling to the Islamists and Taliban/Al Qaeda supporters. If they did, that would be a disaster of world-wide proportions. Not only would international terrorists have a safe home base, but they'd have access to nuclear bombs and materials. A nuclear war with India would only be a matter of time.

As the saying goes, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer". Pakistan is a "frenemy", so we need to keep them in a headlock while trying to encourage the growth of a less-corrupt and more democratic government. A very difficult task.

I've been very interested in exactly how this operation went down. Information is pretty sparse, as it really should be. Apparently, two helicopters with the SEAL team left Afghanistan and flew to Abbottabad for the attack. One helo had a mechanical failure during the operation (possibly due to a sudden ingestion of many bullets from AK47's?) and was destroyed by the team. After the attack was over, the team left with bin Laden's body on the remaining helo and flew back to its base in Afghanistan. The body was apparently photographed, something was taken to provide DNA evidence, and then it was loaded into a US Navy plane and flown to the USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea. Then it was buried according to "Islamic tradition". The burial was probably filmed for propaganda and historical purposes, although nobody has said that yet.

So: how did the helos get from Afghanistan to Abbottabad? They're not stealthy. Did they disguise themselves as a routine supply flight until arriving at Abbottabad? Did they fly low, under the radar? That's a hard trick to do for any length of time, as it requires skimming the earth and flying through valleys. Very dangerous and risky. The Pakistanis weren't told of the attack until it was over, so the Pakistani air traffic controllers certainly weren't in on the game. And how about the fixed-wing flight from Afghanistan to the carrier? By then, everybody knew about the attack.

Going forward, it's going to be interesting to see what the Pakistanis do. They've been caught out before the whole world in a lie. Their people are already furious about the ongoing drone strikes. They can't cut us off because they can't afford to lose our aid and support. Their leaders will probably make a lot of noise about territorial integrity or some such nonsense, but I doubt they'll do anything really rash. So it will be interesting.

As for the remaining Al Qaeda and related terrorists, it's pretty clear that there will be some reprisal attacks. I would expect to see some suicide bombings very soon - almost certainly in Afghanistan, possibly Pakistan, and possibly a few other (unexpected) places. Suicide bombings are easy for them to arrange on short notice. We will probably see much more complicated attacks being planned for the longer term (several months). Al Qaeda used to have a very long-term view, in the decades, but now it's much shorter. They've been beaten back over the past few years. I think they have to quickly prove they're still relevant or else they'll lose their support, so they're probably thinking in terms of months now, rather than decades.

One target down. More must follow. The momentum seems to be on our side now, though.

Out of the Studio

2011-05-01T16:29:00.002-05:00

After eight years, I no longer have a studio. I finished moving out yesterday. The walls no longer have my works on them, my supplies and equipment are gone, and all that's left belongs to my studio partner. I feel kinda sad - the place was my professional home for a long time and now it belongs to somebody else.

But it's time to go on to the next stage of life, whatever that is. I've always found that, when the decision to make a change is made (whether it's a change of duty station, change of job, whatever), then I don't mope about what is past. I get excited about whatever's coming down the pike. That's the situation now. I decided three months ago to find some other full-time employment. Then, in order to focus more on the job search and be better prepared for any offer, I decided three weeks ago to close down the studio. I think that was a good decision. It removed an ongoing distraction ("gotta go down to the studio and paint") as well as a Sword of Damocles ("what am I gonna do with the studio if I get a job offer and have to be somewhere in a week?"). Of course, it took quite a bit longer to close it up than I thought: two weeks instead of the anticipated four or five days.

But in the end, it worked out. I sold off a lot of stuff: furniture and equipment mostly. I packed up the reasonably-good artworks and destroyed a lot of substandard ones. Some artist friends and Goodwill got some things gratis. When I removed my workbench and painting rack, I found some really hideous bug sanctuaries. (Hey, the bench and rack were there for eight years, what did you expect?). Now all the "keeper" items are in a 10x10 storage unit, ready to be loaded into a moving van for transportation wherever we go next.

And I'm pretty sure we're going to go somewhere. Asheville is a wonderful place to live, but it has been recognized for having one of the 10 worst job markets in the country. There are lots of examples: a PhD who's working as a federal GS-5 clerk, a young lady with a masters in biology working as a figure model, a large number of people with bachelor's degrees working as waiters and waitresses, former owners of construction companies working at Lowe's. And those are the lucky ones.

As noted in previous posts, I think something will pop for me before too long. It probably will not be here. So tomorrow I double-down on the job search. It won't be a half-time effort anymore.

And I'm pretty excited about it. Whatever it brings.

Family Tree

2011-04-25T10:14:00.003-05:00

I've been working on my family tree off and on for many years now. Recently, I had a breakthrough on a couple of the branches and discovered two ancestors who fought in the Civil War. Their stories are quite amazing.

One was a great-great-grandfather (my mother's father's father's father), James Price. He enlisted in the 58th Alabama Infantry in February, 1862. The unit was sent to Mobile to man defensive positions for a year. In 1863 the 58th moved to Tullahoma and fought in several small engagements. In September, the men participated in the battle of Chickamauga, where they distinguished themselves by capturing several pieces of Federal artillery the first day and breaking the Federal lines the second. However, the 58th paid a heavy price, losing over half its men killed and wounded during the battle. After recuperating and consolidating, they fought in the battle of Missionary Ridge on November 25th. Union forces defeated the Confederates and ended the siege of Chattanooga. The 58th suffered heavily: of 400 men in the fight, over 250 were killed, wounded, or captured.

My great-great-grandfather and his unit wintered over in Dalton, Georgia. In May, 1864, they fought at Resaca, GA, losing a third of their men in the first few minutes. They also fought at New Hope, Kennesa, and around Atlanta. In the fall they moved north into Tennessee and were in engagements in Columbia, Franklin (twice) and Nashville.

I believe that my great-great-grandfather was wounded and discharged at some point, probably in one of the 1864 battles, as he was married and had a child born in 1865. I haven't found any record of his discharge yet but will continue looking.

The other ancestor was also a great-great-grandfather: my mother's father's mother's father. Lorenzo Whitaker enlisted in the 2nd Mississippi in the spring of 1862. His older brother William had enlisted in the unit the previous year and fought in the Battle of First Manassas (aka, "Battle of Bull Run"). Lorenzo joined the 2nd Mississippi at Yorktown, where they were gearing up for another combat season. Shortly after he arrived, however, his brother was discharged due to an unspecified disability. Lorenzo and the 2nd Mississippi participated in the battles of Seven Pines (near Richmond in May, 1862), Gaines Mill, Second Manassas, and in September, at Antietam. There, they routed Federal forces out of the Cornfield, while sustaining losses of about half their men. The unit then retired to Goldsborough, NC, where they wintered over.

In the spring of 1864, they began combat operations again. They participated in the (unsuccessful) siege of Suffolk, Virginia, and then moved north as part of Lee's campaign to take the fight into Northern territory. The 2nd Mississippi was in the vanguard of forces moving toward Gettysburg when the fighting started on July 1. They inflicted heavy losses on Federal troops, broke their lines, and chased them toward Seminary Ridge. The chase became chaotic, however, and a large group was suddenly outflanked and surprised at the Railroad Cut, which put the Southern forces in a hole and unable to fire effectively. Many were quickly wounded and killed and the Cut became a killing ground. The Major in nominal charge of the Southern forces surrendered. My great-great-grandfather was one of those who was wounded and captured.

As it turns out, these were the lucky ones. Two days later, what was left of the 2nd Mississippi took part in Pickett's Charge, where they were decimated. Out of all the 2nd Mississippi's men who started across the field, only one was not wounded or killed.

Lorenzo and the other captives spent the rest of the war at Fort Delaware, a prison camp on an island off Delaware City. This camp was a gulag, on par with any concentration camp. At one time, it held up to 13,000 prisoners, many from Gettysburg. Water was putrified and food scarce. Rats were a delicacy. Diseases such as scurvy, smallpox, malnutrition, measles, dysentery, and diarrhea were widespread. All had lice. One prisoner wrote that he shrank from 140 pounds to 80 pounds during his time there. Approximately 2700 Confederate prisoners died during captivity; 2436 are buried on the island. Lorenzo survived captivity, however, and went on to raise a family on farms in northern Mississippi.

Reading history books about the great events of our past is all well and good, but it usually seems remote. Now, though, I have a personal interest in places like Chickamauga and Gettysburg. My ancestors were there. Those events shaped them, they shaped their children, and their children, eventually, shaped me.

Richard Johnson - Combat Artist

2011-04-21T07:42:00.003-05:00

I just found out about the "Kandahar Journal", an artist's blog by Richard Johnson. He's with Canadian forces in Afghanistan right now. Richard is an excellent artist, a fine draftsman who really captures the spirit of his subjects. And he has an eye for the telling detail. Go visit the blog, bookmark it, and visit often. This guy is worth following.

Packing Up

2011-04-19T11:45:00.003-05:00

My studio is a mess, isn't it? I'm busy moving out. As mentioned in a previous post, I've put in for some really interesting jobs over the past couple of months, and based on the meetings in Washington two weeks ago, something will probably come through before long. I have no idea how long "before long" will be: it could be this afternoon, it could be in six weeks, who knows? But something will. And when it does, Janis and I are going to have to react very quickly. So it's better to close the studio down now, while there's plenty of time (?), rather than madly rushing around throwing everything into moving boxes or the dumpster.

I'm going to have a studio/yard sale this weekend, on Friday and Saturday, to sell off things that are too good to throw away but no longer of use to me. The past few days have been spent in digging through shelves, sorting, packing, and pitching things into the "sale" pile or the trash. I'm continually amazed at finding stuff that I forget was here, or at the amount of artworks that once were keepers. I've destroyed a lot of drawings and watercolors today that really aren't keepers. It's very cathartic, too. The thought process kinda goes like this: "oh, look at this one, it's not too bad .... well, yeah, but what are you gonna do with it? Would it ever sell? Would you ever frame it for your own house? No?" Then RRRRRIIIIIIIPPPP and it's torn in half and thrown into the paper trash bag. I haven't even started on the canvases yet. Gotta dig out my box cutter first.

I've advertised the studio/yard sale on the local artist listserv and the vultures are already circling. A few items have already been picked off: the tent is gone, some fold-up chairs, and a couple of folding easels. A couple of ladies came in today thinking that the studio will be vacated, but no, my studio partner Christine is staying, so the two ladies were very disappointed. I've even got some artworks at ridiculously marked-down giveaway prices with no takers so far. It's a sad state of affairs when a cheap frame is worth more than the labor of love that's inside it, but that's the way it goes. If you're an artist, get used to it!

Somebody asked if I was quitting my artwork. The answer is NO. I'm a painter, even if I have to be gainfully employed in some other field. For the short term, my garage will be my studio. Once we get settled wherever it is we move to (IF we move), then I'll have a studio again. So I'll continue to make artworks. Just not full-time, and not in this studio, anymore.

So now it's back to work. Two big rolls of bubble wrap are looking at me, as well as bunch of paintings that need to be packed up.

Figure Drawing

2011-04-14T15:08:00.001-05:00

Mac

Charcoal and Conte crayon on toned paper, 22"x16"

Changing Directions

2011-04-09T20:01:00.003-05:00

The trip to Baltimore and Washington this past week was quite eventful. Well, actually, the traveling wasn't eventful, but Wednesday was. I stayed with my aunt and cousin just north of Baltimore. It was great to see them again - they're wonderful people, very supportive of me and my wild hairs. And this trip fell into the "wild hair" category. After traveling on Monday, I spent Tuesday doing my final research and preparations. Then Wednesday morning dawned early. (Okay, it "dawned" at its regular time, which I'm never awake for, so dawn to me is ungodly early.)

My cousin dropped me off at the Camden Yard train station and I caught the MARC train to Union Station in DC. This one hit all the stops, tootling thru the old beat-up industrial areas in south Baltimore. I was looking out the window at all these old factory buildings, thinking what great studio spaces they'd make. When we got into the more rural and residential areas, it was pretty boring until we rolled into Washington. Then it was off the train and down to the Metro station.

For my first stop, I went into downtown Washington. I've applied for a really cool job with a national nonprofit, and one of their main offices is in downtown DC, so I wanted to go by and talk with them in more depth. I'd sent them an email and made two phone calls to set up an appointment, all without any response, so I took the bull by the horns and just walked into the office. To be frank, I wasn't expecting much - to judge by their earlier non-responses, they probably weren't very interested in talking to me.

I was wrong. I spent well over an hour talking with a guy who was very interested, both in me and in talking about his organization. Our conversation ranged over a wide area: the organization's mission, what they're looking for, what they see for their future, what I cold do for them, and far, far more. It was very encouraging. I came away from the meeting even more pumped about the organization, what I could do with them, and about my chances of actually getting onboard. I spent today revising my resume and cover letter to better reflect that understanding. Keep your fingers crossed. This is a really cool opportunity.

From there, I went to the career fair. This was a big event - there were about 80 companies who were (supposedly) looking for new hires. I had identified three that would probably be good to work with, three more that had potential, and five more that at least deserved a look. None of them are as good as the nonprofit, but a guy's got to have a backup plan in place, doesn't he? So I talked to all six of the top companies. Some were better than I'd thought, others not, but that's why you talk with 'em.

What was really interesting to me was the responses I was getting to my background and resume. One guy looked over my resume, gave me his own email address at work, and told me to send him the information about which jobs I was interested in so he could contact the specific decision-makers. Another one told me how to game his company's online job application system to increase the odds of my resume actually getting to somebody important. Apparently, I have a pretty good resume - which is reassuring after getting turned down for so many other lower-level jobs to date with terms like "not qualified" and "not in the most qualified group".

I met up with an old friend from Baghdad there. He and I worked for the same guy at the Corps of Engineers and we're both job-hunting. And, as it turned out (much to our amusement), we have applied to many of the same jobs. So we double-teamed one company's recruiter, offering to arm-wrestle for that particular position. It was cool to see him again and I hope he gets something soon, even if it's one that I applied for, too, as long as I can have the non-profit position. (No, he isn't interested in that group, so I'm safe from competition from him there).

When I wasn't talking with recruiters, I had a great time people-watching. This was a military-oriented career fair, so the place was loaded with Type-A personalities who were on a mission. Don't get in their way or you'll get run over. The newly separated or soon-to-be-separated guys seemed to be wearing the same blue blazers with gray or tan slacks that they got from Joseph A. Banks. There were quite a few of us slightly older guys, and a few who were well past retirement age. I even saw one guy with a bad gray toupee. Never seen one of those before. A gray one, I mean.

Eventually, I got to the lower end of my list of prospective companies and realized that I had absolutely no interest in talking with the recruiter in front of me. Time to leave. Since I was in Washington, I went straight to the Smithsonian's American Art Museum. Got my creative batteries recharged on Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, John Singer Sargent, and more. Then it was time to grab the MARC train back to Baltimore.

My trip home was uneventful, except that I left the power supply for my laptop up at my aunt's place. She's mailing it back to me. Yesterday I had to take care of stuff that popped up while I was gone, namely the "Check Engine" light on the car (why does this only come on when I'm gone?), cutting the grass, and taking care of a few other nitnoid things.

I've made the decision to close down my studio at the end of the month. After my Washington trip, I came to believe that it may not be long before I have a decent job offer in hand. When I do, I'm going to have to move somewhere pretty quickly. Asheville is probably not in my future for very much longer. So it's best for me to pack up my studio now and be ready to go when something happens.

So that's how things stand this Saturday night. It's been an eventful week. My head is in a much different place now than it was at this time seven days ago. Wonder what the next seven days will bring?

Nice Day for a Flight

2011-04-04T09:13:00.003-05:00

So I'm sitting here at the Asheville airport. The flight to Charlotte leaves in an hour, and I'm killing time in the brand-new coffee bar/lounge. This is new since the last time I was here and it's quite nice. I've got a great view out over the parking ramp and runway, over to some kind of construction project on the far side. It's a beautiful day today, not a cloud in the sky and perfect temperature (70 degrees).

I'm on my way to Baltimore today. I'll stay with my aunt and cousin for a few nights. The purpose of the trip is to go to a military-oriented career fair on Wednesday. Yes, the job search is still ongoing. No nibbles yet. Some days I feel like it's only going to be a very short time before I'm gainfully employed again, then the next day I'll feel like I'm never going to find a job, ever. Then I'm convinced again that it'll only be a short time before the perfect job calls.

So what am I looking for? Well, it's really a combination of two things. One, I need to feel like I'm making a positive difference. Just adding to some corporation's bottom line does not excite me. So non-profits and some government agencies are high on my list. Second, our end goal is to move to San Diego. Janis is from there and we have family and friends there, particularly a little grandson. So the perfect job for me is a people-related non-profit in San Diego.

That's a pretty small market. I may have already hit everything there is to hit.

So there are a variety of Option B's. These involve various combinations of expanding the geographic area to southern California in general, expanding the the pool of target organizations to contractors who are doing interesting things, or doing a temporary detour to someplace else.

Which is why I'm heading to this career fair. I've been to this one once before and it was quite impressive - it took over the whole floor of the DC Convention Center. There are maybe 70-80 companies that will attend. I've researched them and have about 15 that I want to talk with; of those, maybe four or five are in my top tier. Almost all are defense contractors of some sort; some have locations in southern California, others are doing really interesting things somewhere else. I've got resumes out the wazoo in three different formats, a hundred or so business cards, and a couple of contacts. Let's rock 'n' roll!

As I typed those last words, my airplane landed and is now taxiing to the gate. Time to close this up and head on over. Wish me luck!

Life Drawing in the Studio

2011-03-24T14:16:00.004-05:00

We had our life drawing session last night. Our model was a young lady who has worked with our group for several years now. Two of my drawings turned out fairly well.

Krista #16

Charcoal and Conte crayon on toned paper, 19"x12"

Krista #15

Charcoal and Conte crayon on toned paper, 19"x12"

Spring!

2011-03-18T11:58:00.002-05:00

Spring has sprung

The grass has riz

I wonder where

The flowers is.

That nonsensical poem came from my first art teacher many many years ago. It still pops into my mind, unbidden, every spring when I see the plants coming back to life. Which is happening now and it's wonderful to see. My grass has been turning green for the past couple of weeks and might even need mowing in another week or so. Our daffodils popped open a week ago. Yesterday, the forsythia started turning yellow. Today, I saw the first sprigs of green on the bushes lining our driveway. The maples are just starting to bud. The tulip poplars and birch trees haven't woken up yet, and the oaks are still sound asleep. They're always the last to come to life and the last to drop their leaves, anyway.

I've got a bit of spring fever today. I wanted to get out into the yard, but pushed myself to go down to the studio instead. There's work to be done. I need to get the portrait completed - it's been on my easel for a long time now. Can't move on to the next project while this one is still front and center. Unlike some other artists, I don't really work on multiple paintings at once. I'm a linear, one-at-a-time kinda guy.

On Wednesday, we had a long pose during our weekly life drawing session. Here's what I came up with. Not the greatest, but it was a fun study, a bit challenging.

Danielle

Oil on panel, 20"x16"

So now it's time to get the big portrait back up on the easel and start working again. Enjoy your spring day!

Serendipity Happens

2011-03-17T11:10:00.003-05:00

I'm a bit frustrated. It feels like I've just been spinning my wheels in slow motion this past week with little or nothing to show for it. In last week's post, I mentioned that I was going to the doctor for a case of painful tennis elbow. She put me on an anti-inflammatory called Meloxicam. I lasted four days on it before the side effects became too much. It made me tired and grumpy, upset everything from the stomach on down, and made me feel like I had a case of the flu. Yuck. As soon as I quit taking it, though, my body perked back up. The elbow is better - not completely well, but now it's just a minor annoyance. I'll take that and run with it.

The doctor also said to give my arm a rest, meaning no painting. So I spent several days on the computer instead, doing my job search. To me, this is a very frustrating experience.

To start with, there is the Great Silence. This is the standard response to a well-written submission that is carefully tailored to the opening. It's what I hear most of the time, particularly from federal agencies, even when I could clearly do the job in my sleep. Drives me nuts. The next most common response is No. At least it's a decision and I can accept that.

All is not bleak. A couple of companies have been vocally interested and had me provide more information. And as I go through the process, I'm learning more about what to say, how to say it, when to say it, how to write it up, and so on. It's iterative, and I'm getting better at it with each interation.

Last week I participated in a virtual career fair. It was essentially a military-focused career fair that was conducted online. Very interesting. There were almost 60 companies and agencies participating. I researched almost all of them, and of that total, there were 2 1/2 that I was interested in. As it turned out, none of them really had anything I wanted to do, but another company popped up out of nowhere and the more I looked, the better it looked. The recruiter was very helpful, interested in me, and wanted more information. Lesson learned: prepare yourself beforehand for these events, research all the companies, and when something unexpected comes up (as it will), go with it.

Actually, this happened to me before. Back in 2007, I attended a career fair in Washington, with the specific intention of talking with the State Department about going to work for them in Iraq. As it turned out, the people at the booth were completely ignorant of the program I was interested in. But while heading back to my car, I stopped in a drug store and spotted a freebie newspaper focused on federal and contractor jobs. It had a section that pointed me directly to the program that I went to the fair to learn about. Which led to me working in Iraq for a year and a half. So the fair itself, for which I'd prepared, was a bust, but the trip was a success due to the unexpected.

And it goes back to something else I learned back in art school: Serendipity Happens.

Yesterday, with my body back to normal, I returned to the studio and picked up a brush again for the first time in a week. Man, did it feel good to be painting again! I worked on the large portrait, putting in a completely revised background. Serendipity happened here, too: everything came together and a beautiful sky appeared behind the young lady with a rose. Now the bottom section needs to be put together. It'll come.

Life Drawing

2011-03-10T09:52:00.002-05:00

Claire

Charcoal and Conte crayon on toned paper

Last night we had our regular Wednesday night life drawing session. Our model, Claire, is a dancer and always takes wonderfully graceful poses. My first couple of drawings were junk, but then things started clicking and this was the last one of the evening. I think it came out pretty well.

Because of the preparations for the show at Mars Hill College and with job-hunting, I haven't been able to put a drop of paint on the portrait in over a week. I'm going through withdrawals now! Must .... paint .... must .... paint .....

Over the last couple of weeks, I've developed a bad case of tennis elbow in my right arm. Okay, so it actually started a year ago from working out in the gym in Iraq. I was able to pretty much ignore it for a long time ... "it'll go away ..." - NOT! And now it has gotten to the point where my arm locks up when I'm working at the easel and constantly burns. So I've got an appointment this afternoon to have it looked at. I can hear Dr. Heiselmann now: "So, how long has this been going on?" Me: "Umm ... a year ..." Okay, so I'm a bit hard-headed and slow!

Exhibit at Mars Hill College

2011-03-06T19:25:00.002-05:00

Mars Hill College is exhibiting a collection of my paintings and drawings through the end of the month. The show is titled "After the Conflict". It includes a few large paintings that were done a few years ago, recent oil paintings, and some drawings and watercolors that were done in Iraq.

Here are (left to right) Lament, You Don't Understand, and Warrior. These paintings were part of my "Meditation on War" series.

I built a support for all of the Portraits from Iraq, turning the collection of eight separate panels into one artwork.

These are six drawings from the "Baghdad Sketchbook", plus the small painting Tent City.

The show runs through the end of the month. It's in Weizenblatt Gallery, in the Moore Fine Art Building. Hours are 9-4 Monday thru Friday, closed weekends.

Life Drawing

2011-03-03T12:01:00.003-05:00

We're still doing the life drawing sessions in my studio on Wednesday evenings. Last night we had a new male model who was quite interesting to draw. This drawing took about 20 minutes and was done in charcoal and white Conte crayon on toned paper. Last week, we had a young lady in for a portrait session. It was fun, but my work (in oil on linen board) was crap, so I wiped it out. That's the way it goes: sometimes the drawings or paintings flow easily, other times they're a struggle, and sometimes you can't get it right no matter what you do.

Painting Progress

2011-02-28T17:39:00.005-05:00

I've been working on a large portrait lately. It's a life-size image of a young woman on a 60"x40" canvas. It's a classic, elegant type of painting. Development has been a bit slow, probably because my attention has been divided between the studio and job-hunting. Today, though, it came a long way in a short time.

I had the model come to the studio a couple of weeks ago. We tried a number of poses and quickly focused on a standing 3/4 stance. I did a bunch of charcoal sketches to work out some thoughts, then did a very rough color sketch that noted color temperatures. Then I took a lot of reference photos - whole figure, face, hands, and other details.

Reference photos are a necessary evil for me. I like working from life, but a painting like this one takes a long time to develop and model fees would bankrupt me long before it was done. So I console myself with the thought that Norman Rockwell and others use photos, too.

I got the painting blocked in in one day, and then worked on the face over two more sessions. By then, the figure had an interesting expression on her face - when doing my "stream of consciousness" scribbling in my journal, the word that popped up was "saucy". I liked the expression. The pose, though, was a different matter. It looked like a prom picture and did not go with the expression at all. So I had the model return to the studio and we came up with a much better solution. The body position is the same, but the arms are different, much livelier. I reworked the block-in and was happier with the changes. Over the next week, I made a little progress here and there. The painting was just crawling along.

Today, though, something happened. I started working on the dress, putting the dark layer down and wiping out the highlights with a rag. It turned out pretty well, so I decided to add the rose. It worked out well, too. Then I did another little little thing, and another, and everything kept turning out pretty well. I was on a roll! That doesn't happen all that often, so when it does, you gotta ride that pony!

So after making slow progress over a couple of weeks, we had major progress today. It still has a long way to go, but here's how it looks right now.

Here's the full painting leaning against my easel. The color looks flat and not well modeled in this shot, probably because of the fluorescent lighting, but there's more to it than appears here.

Here's a detail of the face. This shows a bit more color and modeling, doesn't it?

So what remains to be done? Well, lots. The whole background is going to change. I'm going to give the dress five or six days to dry, then put a glaze of cool color over it with cool highlights. The face needs more work, as well as the hands and arms. In other words, pretty much everything. But now I feel that I have a good framework to build on.

Change of Direction

2011-02-21T10:36:00.004-05:00

The reason that my blog posts have fallen off a bit lately is that I'm job-hunting. Yes, I'm looking for a full-time position that does something worthwhile. And, as usual, there are many reasons for this move at this time.

One reason is that I have little confidence in economic recovery anytime soon. Despite some positive signs, and despite pundits saying that things are looking up, I see a lot of doom and gloom for at least the next five years, probably more. Back in October, I wrote a blog post about the federal budget. It noted that the current federal spending accounts for over 25% of the US gross domestic product (GDP), but only takes in about 15% of GDP. Both levels are significantly different from their historical levels of about 20%. In other words, we're spending at levels not seen since WWII, and taxing at unsustainably low levels. To get the budget back in balance, Congress is going to have to cut spending by about $630B and raise revenues by about $540B. So far, both parties are doing a lot of posturing and doing little or nothing substantive, but the substance is going to come one way or another. The ongoing battle in Wisconsin is just the opening skirmish in what is going to be a long, difficult, and ugly period. These government cutbacks are going to come at a time when private industry is sitting on massive amounts of cash and doing little or nothing to actually build a solid economic recovery. Not a good combination.

The budget problem is going to hit retirement pay hard. Many private companies have managed to duck their pension obligations and local and state governments are looking to do the same. I think this will probably hit the federal government as well. Military retirees (like me) have already had our retirements frozen at current levels. I can see the day when Congress tries to actually reduce it or take it away.

And Social Security is tied up in the mess. Economists, Social Security administrators, and anybody who can add one and one and get two have been warning for years that the structure of Social Security is unsustainable and must be fixed. But in the recent lame duck session of Congress, instead of fixing it, they made the problem worse by cutting payroll taxes and putting Social Security into red ink permanently. I fear for Social Security over the long run.

Meanwhile, many economists and business leaders have been predicting a rise in inflation. Ben Stein (whom I often disagree with but always respect) made the case pretty succinctly in a piece on 60 Minutes yesterday morning, anticipating high inflation with a stagnant economy. I remember well the previous "stagflation" period of the 70's. It was pretty awful, and unfortunately it looks like we're heading there again.

So I think our economy is going to remain in the toilet for years. As an artist, that's pretty devastating. Artists are the economic "canary in a coal mine": we're the first to get hit in an economic downturn and the last to recover. (In fact, the art world had not recovered from the relatively mild recession of the early 2000's when the economy tanked in '08). Since returning from Iraq in May of last year, I've seen little sign of hope. From visitors to my studio, to galleries, to discussions with other artists, to my proactive ventures into public art, there's no real indication that the art world is on the rebound.

As a result, I've decided that the best course of action for me is to find full-time employment. For the past two months, I've spent about half my time on researching opportunities, talking to friends and potential employers, putting in applications, and revising my resume on a daily basis. I can't say it's fun. Actually, it's a bit dispiriting, particularly when I get turned down for a job that I could do in my sleep. But a job search is a numbers game. You gotta keep at it and explore every opportunity. Sooner or later, something will come through.

I do NOT consider this a failure as an artist. My art is quite good: my paintings, drawings, and original prints are well done and have important things to say. But if the market is not there, that's something beyond my control. Some people have told me that I should do this or that type of artwork, something that would appeal to a wide population and sell. Unfortunately, I seem to be genetically incapable of doing that. My mind puts up a solid concrete wall when it comes to creating decorative items for popular consumption. Give me something with some meat to it and I'm on a roll; give me a mission of creating fluff and I fall on my face. Steve Jobs said something memorable when he was recruiting John Sculley away from Pepsi to run Apple: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?". I can't do sugar water. My contribution to changing the world is minuscule, but I'd rather do that than make art just to sell.

So now I'm looking for other ways to contribute. I've got a lot of irons in a lot of fires right now and more coming. Many more. Meanwhile, I'll continue to work in the studio. There's an exhibit coming up next month that needs to be prepared, a new painting in progress, and some more workshops and classes to be taught. And a few of the "irons in the fire" are art projects.

But if you're looking for somebody to help you change the world, give me a call.

Life Drawing Session

2011-02-17T17:30:00.002-05:00

This is a small, 16"x12" oil sketch done last night during our life drawing session. I decided to challenge myself and use oil paint instead of charcoal and paper. This, and the other three, were done in 20 minutes or so. I wiped out all the others, but this one was interesting. The model's pose had a lot of power to it, which is what I tried to capture.

Today, I'm working on a large (60"x40") portrait of a young woman. It is, frankly, "commission bait", an example of what I can do. Today I worked up the drawing and transferred it to the toned canvas. Tomorrow, the paint starts flowing.

Preparation Week

2011-02-10T14:32:00.003-05:00

Sorry, no cool photos for this post. I've been spending my time doing lots of behind-the-scenes preparation. For what? Well, two things, mostly:

I'm going to have a Color Mixing Workshop in my studio next weekend, on Saturday the 19th, from 10 am to 4 pm. I had a difficult time with color mixing for many many years. When I studied art growing up, and in my first time around in college in the mid-70's, color mixing was a "black art". I could mix one yellow and one blue and get a bright green, but change one or both colors and wind up with something that looked like it crawled out of a swamp. Nobody could tell me why. About all the guidance I received was to keep mixing colors and eventually I'd know which ones to use. Well, "eventually" never came. I finally moved away from painting and did black-and-white printmaking instead for many years.

In the early 1990's, when I was studying painting at Maryland Institute, College of Art, one of our required textbooks was "Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green", by Michael Wilcox. This book gave me a clear and logical understanding of how artists' colors act when mixed. Finally, I understood why one pair of colors gave one result, and a different pair gave a different result. More importantly, I could deliberately choose my colors to get the specific effect needed. It completely changed the way that I thought about colors. As a result, I'm a painter now. Printmaking is secondary.

The approach taught by this book is still not taught very much in schools, though, and I see lots of new artists having a rough time with color mixing. So I'm going to have this workshop and show more people how to do it. Interested? There are more details on my web site.

Meanwhile, in the studio, I'm still doing color charts. And I'm still learning things about my colors that surprise me. But I'm itching to put that knowledge to use now, so I'll start working on something new within a few days.

The other thing that I'm preparing for is an exhibition of paintings at Mars Hill College. The show will be called "Residue of Conflict" and will be made up of paintings from the "Meditation on War" series as well as works done during and after my time in Iraq. It'll be up from March 7 to March 31 in Weizenblatt Gallery in the Moore Auditorium building, which will be open during working hours Monday through Friday. I've been preparing works for this show and need to do some final preparations over the next couple of weeks. So if you're in the Asheville, NC, area during March, take a drive north to Mars Hill and see the show!

Charts and Murals

2011-02-04T17:06:00.004-05:00

There's an interesting project that I'm involved with. In downtown Asheville, there's an area called the Block. It's an historically African-American neighborhood that has been left behind in economic development over the past 20 years. Now, however, a local non-profit affordable housing development group called Mountain Housing Opportunities is going to refurbish and enlarge an existing decrepit building. When done, it'll have apartments, offices, and retail spaces. The project won't start for another year, though, so in the meantime, MHO has asked the Asheville Mural Project to put some murals up over the boarded-up windows. The murals will be images of African-American leaders. The AMP asked me to do a couple of them, and so I wound up doing one of Rosa Parks and another of Booker T. Washington. That's Booker on my easel above.

Okay: so how does something from my easel wind up as part of a mural? Well, the images are being painted with acrylic paint on what's being called "painter's dropcloth". It's not really a dropcloth, it's a special kind of paper. In the studio, I temporarily taped the paper to an existing stretched canvas so that I could adjust it on my easel as necessary. Now that the images are done, the AMP will laminate the paper onto plywood and attach them to the windows. This is much easier than trying to paint the images onto plywood onsite, especially this winter.

With Booker completed and out the door, I went back to my other project. I've been doing color charts lately. This is something that I do every few years, both as a refresher and to learn something about new colors. And I always learn something new, even about colors that I've had on my palette for years.

Here are some of the completed color charts. If you look at the one on the bottom in the photo above, it has Burnt Sienna (a brownish red) straight from the tube in the upper left corner and Viridian (a bluish green) straight from the tube in the upper right. In between, left to right, is Burnt Sienna with a bit of Viridian; a half & half mixture of the two; and Viridian with a bit of Burnt Sienna. The two rows below are the top row colors mixed to a mid-value and then to a light value with Titanium White. So these charts give me a good idea of how the two colors interact with each other, and how they look when they're lightened. Yes, I know, it looks pretty anal, but my peabrain likes things organized and logical.

My focus this time has been creating charts that cross the color wheel: reds with yellows, greens with reds, oranges with blues. These are giving me a rich variety of neutrals. Some of my discoveries have been very surprising. For example, the Burnt Sienna made by Utrecht is very different from Burnt Sienna made by Gamblin. The one by Utrecht looks like a dark brown straight from the tube, but is really a strong dark orange, and when mixed with Cobalt or Ultramarine Blue, it gives a nice muted green. The one by Gamblin is much more muted; I'd almost call it "dead" next to the Utrecht version. Never would have thought that.

New subject. I've had a subscription to Art in America magazine for several years. It keeps me in touch with what's going on in the art world and I've found some really good artists in its pages. When I get a new issue, I go through the whole thing and flag the pages where there's something of interest - which, to me, show painters doing interesting narratives. (Hey, I'm a narrative painter, after all!) My new issue arrived yesterday and hit a new low. I only found one artist of interest. One. The rest of the magazine was filled with images, ads, and articles about artists doing installations and other things that I couldn't care less about. Art in America has always been a source of new ideas for me, but there are fewer and fewer interesting painters in its pages. If this keeps up, my subscription will have to lapse.

New Paintings

2011-01-31T20:16:00.004-05:00

Through the Window

White Keffiyeh

Oil on panel, 20"x16"

Two more paintings have been added to the "Portraits from Iraq" series. "Through the Window" is based on a random photo of a young soldier during a trip outside the wire. "White Keffiyeh" is of an Iraqi working-class man.

All of the paintings in this series are size 20"x16". This uniformity is one of the uniting factors in this series. They are intended to be seen as one work. I haven't decided exactly how they'll be presented yet, but I'm thinking that they'll be in one long unit to hang at eye level. Maybe I'll have to break it into two or more sections just for practical reasons ... right now there are 8 portraits and there will be another four to six more, meaning the whole series will measure up to 19 feet long. That's a little longer than the bed of my truck!

Posthumous Portrait

2011-01-26T11:38:00.005-05:00

Helo Pilot

20"x16", oil on panel, 2011

Over the past week or two, I've been swapping emails with an old Navy buddy. We got to talking about issues that are central to my "Meditation on War" paintings: why we go to war, how military members feel about it, the costs of war, and personal losses. His daughter was engaged to a young Army helicopter pilot, a Captain. He went to Iraq in 2006. While flying a combat support mission over Mosul, in northern Iraq, he was shot down and killed. When he was buried, pretty much the whole town turned out to line the streets.

This story got to me. Reading stories about anonymous soldiers being killed in action is one thing, but hearing about the personal impact is another. Isn't it always? I asked for some pictures of the young man. One of them, where he was beside his helicopter, seemed to me to be the liveliest and captured something of his spirit. So I turned it into the painting above.

Doing a portrait is difficult under the best of circumstances. Doing a posthumous portrait is doubly so, particularly of somebody I never met. I can't see the person, can't study the way light bounces off different surfaces, can't see the color shifts in the skin tones, can't see the way he carries himself, and (most important) can't get my own first-hand impression of his personality and character. Even worse, such a portrait is loaded with emotional baggage that a regular portrait doesn't have. So doing a posthumous portrait is at best a guessing game done in a minefield. Fortunately, this time I apparently got it right, or at least close enough. My buddy said that I hit the mark with it, and that's a good feeling.

A few years ago, I saw a TV show about a woman who was painting portraits of fallen soldiers. She was a professional artist and her works were quite good. The segment followed her as she painted a portrait of a young infantry soldier from some photos, and then went to the his parent's house to record their reaction. It was evident to me that the portrait missed something in the young man's likeness or character. The reaction that an artist wants is "Oh, my gosh, that's John!" The reaction this portrait got was "oh ... ummm ... look, she got the way he always stands ..." Put yourself in their position: they've lost their son, somebody has gone to the trouble of painting a portrait of him and is giving it to them, here's a TV crew in their living room to record the Big Moment, and the portrait isn't quite John. What are they going to do? Say something nice, be appreciative, and when the TV crew leaves, they'll pack the picture up and put it away someplace while they try to put their lives back together again, only without their son.

I've done a posthumous portrait once before of a young Navy sailor who died of cancer. I didn't copy one single photograph. Instead, I used the general pose of one photo, combined with features from several others. It went through about three iterations before it finally felt right. I also had a contact who gave me regular (and very detailed) feedback. So I was pretty comfortable with the end result.

The Navy Chief

Oil on canvas, 20"x16", 2008

Apparently, though, I missed the mark. While it's a good painting, it evidently didn't capture something important of the likeness or the character. I never heard anything from the family nor my contact, so I have no idea what wasn't right. It's probably in a box in an attic now, if not a landfill.

Am I whining? No. It was a learning experience. I learned that posthumous portraits need to be handled with kid gloves. If I get it right, it's a wonderful thing for the family to have. If I get it wrong, it's another emotional burden on a family that already has more than it can handle.

Janis's Horses

2011-01-24T18:15:00.004-05:00

Janis's Horses

Oil on canvas, 36"x48"

Janis's Christmas present is finally done. It came home this afternoon and is hanging on our bedroom wall now. This was a hard one for me to do - I've never done a horse before, and there was certainly a lot to learn. But it's done.

Over the past two weeks, I've gotten two exhibitions lined up. One will be at Wiesenblatt Gallery at Mars Hill College during the month of March. Actual dates are still to be determined, but I'll post them here as soon as they're firmed up. The other will be a larger exhibition at Flood Gallery in Asheville during August. This one will be a bit more raw. Both will feature my "Meditation on War" paintings with some new works. I'm very excited about both of these shows!

So now I'm beginning work on new paintings for both of these shows. Right now it's mostly conceptual: What needs to be painted? What stories need to be told? How are those stories best put into paint? Should it be more direct and in-your-face, or indirect and metaphorical? I think I'll be wrestling with these questions up until, oh, the first of August.

Horse Drawings

2011-01-21T12:58:00.004-05:00

I'm still working on Janis's horse painting. I'm not ready to show it yet - there's still work to be done - but here are three charcoal and Conte crayon sketches that I did while trying to learn what a real horse looks like.

White Arabian

Charcoal and Conte crayon on paper

Profile

Charcoal and Conte crayon on paper

Running Arabian

Charcoal and Conte crayon on paper

I'm hoping to wrap up the painting in the next day or two. It's time to get it off my easel and move on to the next painting. I only work on one painting at a time, maybe two, which is admittedly a slow process. But that's the way I work.

Looks like a couple of irons that I've had in the fire are about ready to pop. I'll post the news here when it's ready.

Alex Kanevsky and Tom Richmond

2011-01-16T20:21:00.009-05:00

Two artists that I've been studying this week are Alex Kanevsky and Tom Richmond. It's hard to imagine two artists with less in common than these. Alex is a Russian immigrant who studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and makes deeply layered paintings. Tom is a Minnesota caricaturist who works for MAD Magazine. So, maybe I'm a bit schizophrenic, but my study time this week has been split between a painter and a caricaturist.

Alex came to my attention because he was the juror for a national juried exhibit of drawings at UNC Asheville. I looked up his web site and was tremendously impressed. Alex's figures are beautifully done with a combination of accurate drawing and loose brushwork that I find fascinating. They are individuals with a story to tell, although these are not narrative works at all. They're real people, filtered through Alex's head and many layers of paint. Many times, I've seen this "filtering" process filter out every ounce of the subject's individuality, but that does not happen here.

On Friday evening at UNCA, Alex gave a presentation about his work. It was a great opportunity to see inside his process: how he came to a particular subject, how he worked through it, how his paintings developed, and what he experienced. One comment really got my attention - I have to paraphrase it here - "painting on the edge of incompetence". The idea is that if you're working within your familiar bounds, you're boring, not learning anything, and just producing widgets. If you're painting outside your familiar bounds, you're incompetent: almost by definition, you don't know what you're doing. But if you're "painting on the edge of incompetence", then you're pushing your own boundaries, still having a bit of control but running the risk of having it crash and burn. And by definition, your boundaries just expanded ... regardless of whether the painting is a success or failure.

That applies to so much more than painting, doesn't it? I draw a parallel to downhill skiing. When I was first learning to ski, we had about a half day of training on the bunny slopes. Then we went right up to the top of the mountain, where all the slopes were intermediate or above. I fell a lot on the way down, but I learned a lot, too. Had to. I was on the edge of my incompetence the whole way, and had to invent for myself a way of skiing that would keep me upright for more than 15 feet at a time.

Alex's paintings may sometimes look simple, but they are far, far from it. In one section of his website, he shows how some of his paintings progressed from the first block-in to the final signed version. I was blown away by how radically the paintings could change from one stage to another. One stage would show a well-rounded, warmly-colored figure, while in the next the whole painting would be hidden beneath a cool, flat wash of color, with the figure barely discernible. Few artists dare show how their paintings develop, but Alex does.

So this was my introduction to Alex Kanevsky. For more insight into him, his work, and his techniques, read this interview with him on the Truant Johnny blog. It's worth your time.

Also this week, we got this caricature of our daughter-in-law. It's brilliant, actually. Trust me, this is Julie! So I got to thinking about caricatures. What is it about them that work? Everything about them is an exaggeration, which means they can't actually resemble their subjects, but still, we look at a caricature like this and instantly say "Oh, my gosh, that's Julie!"

I did some study of cartoons and caricatures many years ago, and came to the conclusion that good portraits and good caricatures are not that far apart. In both cases, you have to know what it is about that particular face that makes it unique: the shape and placement of the eyes, the tilt of the nose, the way a mouth curves, the way each part relates to every other part, and much more. Both portraits and caricatures have to have all these things right, plus that indefinable "something" that captures the inner character of the sitter.

So I started poking around on the net and quickly found Tom Richmond's website. Tom is an unbelievably talented and skilled caricaturist. One glance at his subjects, like Jon Stewart, and you know exactly who you're looking (and laughing) at. Tom now does most of MAD magazine's celebrity caricatures ... and in this world, there is no higher honor, except maybe the New Yorker.

What's just as impressive as his skill is his willingness to share what he has learned. His blog is a must-read for anybody interested in caricatures, or who wants to learn how to do them, or wants to know the business of cartoons and illustration. For example, if you go to the "pages" section and click on "tutorials", you'll find a five-chapter program that goes into caricatures in great depth. I mean great depth, better than any other book on caricatures that I've ever seen. I hope the guy puts it all together into a book, because it'll be in my reference collection as soon as he does. Because, as I noted earlier, the difference between a good caricature and a good portrait is not that great, and the things Tom tells you about in the tutorials can apply to a painting as well as an illustration.

So. Two very different artists. Two very different approaches. So much to learn, so little time!

Catching Up

2011-01-12T10:53:00.003-05:00

Since my last post, there has been a lot of different, non-studio things happen that have occupied my attention. First and foremost was the shootings in Tucson. At present, it appears that the shooter, Jared Loughner, was a lone, literal nutcase. As more details come out about him, the only thing that's clear is that we have no clue as to why he did this. But that has not stopped the discussion on air and in the blogosphere.

The Tucson sheriff started it with his statements that the vile state of politics contributed to the shooting. Others jumped in, some echoing the sheriff and others loudly denying it. From my perch, it appears that Loughner did the shootings for reasons of his own that probably had nothing to do with whatever they say on Fox. However, I also think that the sheriff is right. I've been saying for some time that all sides need to cool down the rhetoric. Calling each other the enemy, putting cross-hairs on maps of opponents' houses, and other such statements are reprehensible. We're all Americans, for God's sake. We disagree about a lot of things, but none of us are enemies of our own country. The only thing divisiveness does is drive up the blood pressure of good, normal people, and pad the wallets of those who spew the hate.

Although it appears that political hatemongering probably didn't contribute to the Tucson shootings, the discussion about it is still very worthwhile. I've found two video clips and one blog that, I think, were very well done.

One is Jon Stewart. It's a helluva thing when a comedian is one of the most respected political commentators around, but Jon is. (Another of his ilk was Will Rogers, back in the '30's. One of Will's pithy observations: "I belong to no organized political party. I am a Democrat." Still true 80+ years later!) This particular clip is long, and you need to get past the first attempt at humor with John Oliver, but Stewart's comments are worth it.

The other video statement came from Keith Olbermann, the liberal voice on MSNBC. Keith denounced the tone of politics, apologized for any role he had in contributing to it, and called on others (with specifics) to do the same. It was a "have you no shame" moment for the new decade, powerfully done.

The blog post came from Paul Krugman, an op-ed contributor to the New York Times. Paul said he was not surprised that something like this happened. I agree. Even though Loughner is a nut job, it's the nut jobs that go over the edge first.

On the other side of the coin, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have been loudly denying any responsibility for anything whatsoever. They remind me of little boys standing beside the broken vase, crying "I didn't do it!" when you know damn well they did. Bill O'Reilly, to my knowledge, hasn't said anything. Sarah Palin has taken down some of the more inflammatory posts on her blog (good on her) and then went on to deny any responsibility like Beck and Limbaugh (bad on her). None of them have the guts to stand up, like Olberman did, and help move this country forward.

Okay, enough politics. I've been working away on applications for public art projects and art show submissions because I haven't been able to get away from the house since Thursday. We've had round after round of snow over the past month and, as I write this, it's still coming down. I'm getting a workout by shoveling the driveway every couple of days. Frankly, I'm getting sick of it - tell me again, when will spring get here?

Finally, we had a scammer target my wife's cell phone. Somebody (we have no idea who) managed to sneak a $9.99 charge for "premium data messaging" onto our cell phone bill the past two months. I talked to an Elizabeth at Verizon this morning (very helpful lady) who reversed the charges for me and blocked all other such charges in the future. An interesting twist: to stop the incoming messages, you're supposed to send a text message saying "STOP" to the number sending them. When I did so, I got a bounce-back saying that the number did not accept any incoming messages! Since I've blocked all premium messages anyway, no big deal, but that's their trick: send you text messages, charge you $10 a pop for them, and give you no way to stop them.

Okay, I'm off to shovel some more snow now.

Art Opening

2011-01-07T10:10:00.002-05:00

Last night we did something we haven't done in a long time. We went to an art opening. It was at Blue Spiral 1 gallery in downtown Asheville and we had several old friends who are showing there.

One is Hunter Stamps. Hunter and I were in the Fine Arts curriculum at UNCA together, ten years ago now. He's now a ceramics professor in Lexington, KY. Hunter makes abstracted ceramic pieces that are based on the human figure. Over the past few years, he has started incorporating strong, vibrant colors in his work. Blue Spiral is showing quite a few of his works this month. I hadn't seen him in years and it was good to catch up with him again.

Another one we wanted to see was Hunter's lovely wife Amelia. She makes the most beautiful functional pottery - very delicate in appearance, with understated, soft colors, primarily a light green. We have a couple of her pieces at home. Amelia is the sweetest young woman and we had a great time talking with her.

Yet another one is Robert Winkler. Robert is ex-Bostonian, ex-New Yorker, and a sculptor of architectural forms. We worked together a number of years ago on a juried outdoor sculpture exhibit here in Asheville. He's an incredibly sharp man. Blue Spiral is featuring him in their downstairs gallery and it is a strong exhibit. I saw a lot of his works that I'd never seen before, things that were meant to hang on walls indoors. Very beautiful and exceptionally well done. I hadn't seen Robert in maybe three years and had a good time playing catch-up with him.

The art world is not really that big, and the art world in Asheville is really not that big. So if you go to an opening in this town, you're going to run into a lot of old friends. And since we hadn't been to an opening in years, we had a lot of people to talk with. We ran into Kyle Carpenter, who has a studio just down the road from mine. Just because our studios are within a quarter-mile of each other doesn't mean we see each other very often. Kyle makes really beautiful functional pottery - in fact, Janis had one of his pieces centered on our mantel.

We added two new artworks to our collection last night. One is a lovely little jar by Donna Polseno. In fact, if you go to her web site and look at the functional pottery, #15 is the one that is now on our mantel. Donna's ceramics go in a couple of directions: functional pottery with plant and animal motifs and figurative sculptures. Go take a look: it's some really beautiful work.

The other is a wonderful wood engraving by Andy Farkas. This particular piece (not on his website) spoke to Janis and me - to us, it was about the risk and joy of being an artist. Andy's work is incredibly well-done. It appears at first to be whimsical, but there's some serious meat to each piece. Each one is deserving of contemplation and study.

Life Drawing Again

2011-01-05T22:31:00.003-05:00

With the holidays finally over, I re-started our life drawing sessions tonight. I had been going through figure drawing withdrawals. It had been a month since our last session, and it was time for a fix! So tonight, we had a new model. It was her first time working as a model, but she did a great job. And despite the forecast for snow, we had a good-sized crowd show up. We went with a single pose for the whole session, which was good for the painters. Here's what I came up with. I was pretty happy with my painting process - the color choices and brush selections seemed to be done automatically, with very little thought, the way it should be. Not a bad evening's exercise.

I'm still working on Janis's horses. This painting is a tough fight. Nothing is coming easily - not the color choices, not the brushwork, nothing. But it's slowly getting better. No, you can't see a picture of it yet. I'm learning a lot about horses, though. One of our neighbors has a couple of the critters, so I went over there and sketched and took a lot of photos. Janis took one look and put her foot down: "You are not going to paint a picture of those horses! They're nags!" She went on: "If you're going to put a picture of a car on your wall, are you going to put up a picture of a beat-up Chrysler minivan, or a Ferrari? It's the same with horses. So paint me a picture of an Arabian!" So I've been learning what an Arabian is, doing some drawings, and trying to get an Arabian horse to magically appear on my canvas. Maybe it will. I'll keep you posted.

Goodbye, 2010, Hello, 2011

2010-12-31T10:00:00.002-05:00

What a year it's been. Twelve months ago, I was working in Baghdad, writing Statements of Work for six new projects. I had my last R&R in January and got to shovel a lot of snow at home. Back in Baghdad, I got some of my projects launched, while the others were cancelled. Those projects that were launched are still ongoing and will make a big difference to Iraq over the next several years. Makes me feel like my time there was worthwhile.

At the end of April, my time in Iraq was up. I came home and readjusted to the Real World. Janis and I gave ourselves a vacation to Florida. The highlight (for me) was the 165-mph ride around the Daytona Speedway in a modified stock car. What a hoot! My adrenaline still gets going when I remember that. Then it was time to go back home and get into a normal routine, which meant going back to work in the studio. Oddly, I have found it harder to go from being a project manager to being an artist than it was to go from artist to project manager. Maybe my years as a Naval officer made the project-management side into second nature, but getting the creative mindset working has been difficult. It seems to be working again, now, but it took about six months to get the thought process going again. In July and August, I made a Star Wars-themed mural for a young boy's bedroom in Annapolis. My next project was to make five new series of hand-colored drypoint prints. They were on exhibit at the Bella Vista Gallery in Asheville during November and December.

Also in November was the River Arts District Studio Stroll. After talking with a lot of artists, it appears that the number of visitors to the Stroll was way up, but the sales (both volume and amounts) were way down. Artists are the economic "canary in a coal mine", and these canaries are still on life support. Our economy has a long way to go before this recession is over. Later in November, Janis and I went to Baltimore to visit my aunt and cousin for Thanksgiving. It was great to see them again.

Janis has started a pet-sitting business (Mars Hill Pet Sitting). She had some clients who live in a log house on top of a ridge - a beautiful house in a beautiful location, with two sweet older dogs. What could go wrong? Well, the Great Christmas Blizzard of 2010, that's what! The driveway to the house is about a quarter-mile long, very steep, and made of dirt and gravel. No way could our car get close to the house in 10" of snow. Actually, with all the snow and ice on the roads, our car couldn't even get out of the driveway. So I wound up staying at the client's house for three nights to make sure the dogs were taken care of. (And this is Janis's business?)

Looking ahead to 2011, I see several things coming down the pike:

- One or both of us will get a job. We've been drawing down on our savings from my stint in Iraq and that can't go on forever. I'm looking for something part-time so I can continue to work in the studio. J's working to get the pet-sitting business to take off.

- I'm going to exhibit some of my paintings around the region. Several opportunities are in the works, but to keep from jinxing them, I won't say any more at this point.

- This year, I'm going to work hard on getting the quality of my paintings to a new level. That learning process is always ongoing, but right now I'm putting a lot of emphasis on it.

- This year, I'll revamp/reinvigorate/refocus my marketing efforts. Paintings like mine have a very special audience. Simply putting them in galleries doesn't put them in front of the right people.

Sounds like a fairly simple list of things to do this year, no? No. Sometimes it feels overwhelming, that there's too much to do and not enough time to do it in. Creating decent paintings takes a lot of time. Creating murals takes a lot of time. Creating a marketing plan takes a lot of time. Researching potential commissions takes a lot of time. Networking and advertising takes a lot of time. You get the idea. With all the things that need to be done, it's like I'm trying to fill up the Grand Canyon by chucking pebbles over the edge.

So now it's time to get back to work. Goodbye, 2010. Let's hope 2011 is a better year!

Janis's Horse

2010-12-23T14:17:00.006-05:00

My wife, Janis, loves horses. She used to ride a lot when she lived in Chula Vista, and she has wanted to have a painting of a horse for some time. Recently, when we were at an opening at 16 Patton (a gallery here in Asheville), she spotted a beautiful painting of a horse. It really was (is) stunning, and she's talked about it ever since. Then, a few weeks ago, she decided "dammit, my husband is an artist, and he can damn well paint a horse for me!" And since I have no desire to sleep on the couch, I agreed.

We did a Google search for photos of horses and started sorting through the roughly 8.2 trillion images to get an idea of what she wanted. The ones she liked the most were the ones where the horse was tossing its head with its mane flying. I printed out several images along that theme, worked up a sketch of a running horse (mane waving in the wind), and got her okay. Then it was time to start putting paint on canvas.

This is a good-sized canvas, 36"x48". I roughed in the horse and then laid on the paint with a painting knife. This isn't my usual style, but since a horse isn't my usual subject, it seemed like a good opportunity to try something new, and works done with a painting knife have a certain intrinsic energy. After a couple of days, though, this was clearly not going well. In fact, it sucked. So I scraped everything off. The next day, I came in with a brush (my normal painting tool) and started the horse over. From the beginning, the pose was much more dynamic and accurate. I could feel the weight and heft of the horse's body, the movement of its legs, the flow of the mane, the way the dust was being kicked up. The painting was rocking. Then I stood back and really looked at it.

The painting was awful. Terrible! It looked like something you'd see in a Tijuana tourist shop. It was as trite as you could get: "here's the white horse, running through the dust (or water, or whatever)" .... gag! I was embarrassed to have my name associated with it. Clearly, nothing could (or should) save this turkey.

So I went back to the source of all these troubles: the paintings of horses that Janis saw at 16 Patton. The artist is a woman named Mase Lucas. Her works are simply beautiful. The horses are real, with their own personalities. The paintings have a life of their own, a vibrancy, that my turkey lacked. Mase knows horse anatomy, and her creatures are accurately painted without being slaves to photographic likeness. They're portraits of specific horses, while at the same time capturing a universal horse spirit.

Once I saw Mase's works, I understood my situation better. I did a painting several years ago titled "Welcome to Sarajevo". It was of a house near the Sarajevo airport that had been severely damaged during the Bosnian civil war. My painting was done from photos I'd taken while with the peacekeeping forces there. I'd stripped out all the extraneous junk surrounding it and just focused on the house. An artist friend later described the painting as a "portrait". Good portraits capture, not just a likeness, but the essence of the subject - you immediately understand what he/she/it has been through and what its character is like. That's why my "portrait" of the house in Sarajevo worked so well. And that's also why my painting of the running horse failed so badly. It wasn't about a real horse, it was about some hackneyed idea of a horse.

So I'm starting over again. After this morning, here's how the painting looks right now:

The crappy running horse is gone. Now I have a great, mottled, richly textured surface to paint on. The next step is to research horses, understand how their bodies are built, find some good source material, and create a good composition. Something tells me it'll take a while. Meanwhile, Mase Lucas' paintings are my guide. I'm not going to copy any of them - they're her horses, not mine. But if I can get half of the character of her horses into mine, then I'll consider it successful.

Jerome Witkin

2010-12-19T08:47:00.005-05:00

Pensione Ichino

Jerome Witkin, 1997

From the Painting Perceptions blog, I found an excellent interview in the Huffington Post with my favorite painter, Jerome Witkin. The author, John Seed, has some excellent insights into Witkin and narrative painting in general here and well worth a read.

Pensione Ichino (center panel)

Jerome Witkin, 1997

Back in the Studio

2010-12-18T10:11:00.004-05:00

The snow finally relented enough on Thursday for me to get back into the studio. Now I've got a new painting underway that will be Janis's Christmas present. She has wanted a painting of a horse for years, and had been looking at works by other artists and trying to make a trade. Then she realized, "I'm married to a painter!" So I've got a "commission" to get done within the next week.

With this painting, I'm trying a couple of things that are out of the ordinary. For one, this painting is being done on polyester, not cotton or linen. Polyester does not stretch out like cotton, and is not affected by temperature and humidity like cotton and linen, and it lasts much longer. When conservators re-line an old painting, they use polyester now. So far, I really like it. The canvas is as tight as a drum, with a lot of spring to it, and is as tight after two days of work as it was in the beginning.

The other thing that's different is that I'm painting with a painting knife instead of brushes. Painting knives are kinda like small, narrow trowels. I wanted a very energetic paint surface and you can certainly get that with a knife. This isn't a tool I'd normally use, and probably will not use very much after this, but it's different and fun, and it's good to get out of your normal routine every once in a while.

So now it's off to the studio. Got a lot of work to get done and not much time to do it in.

More Snow!

2010-12-14T13:22:00.005-05:00

I'm getting cabin fever. It's Tuesday, and we've been stuck at home since Saturday evening. Right now there's about 6 inches of snow on the ground. I've shoveled the driveway three times, both to keep the snow from turning into ice, and just to have something physical to do. We have a fairly long and pretty steep driveway, so keeping it free of ice is very important. We learned that lesson eleven years ago, during our first winter here. I've spent the past couple of days working on the business side of the studio. Important stuff that needs to be done, but I'm really itching to get back to slinging paint again.

Speaking of painting, I wanted to share something by one of my favorite artists. It's a little bit of Southern California expressionism:

My Hands

Jackson Kane

Water-based paint on paper, 11"x8 1/2"

My grandson, the budding artist. World's best refrigerator art!

The Painting Process

2010-12-12T09:28:00.004-05:00

The Red Dress

Oil on canvas, 30"x24"

I finally finished The Red Dress yesterday. It's been in progress for about six weeks, a typical period for me to work on a painting. This one started after looking at some portraits by John Singer Sargent, which made me want to work from an elegant, clothed model. So Whitney and I discussed which outfit she should wear and decided on this one. In the first session, I roughed in the figure and finished her face, and was so excited about the progress that I had her come back the next evening. In the second session, we more or less finished the figure. It was off to a good start.

Now my question was, what to do with it? It was a good painting of a pretty girl, but so what, those are a dime a dozen. So I decided to try an approach used by one of my favorite artists, Jerome Witkin, and make it about a model in the studio. I moved the edges of the backdrop from off the canvas to inside, then roughed in the bricks. Now it was apparent that there was a "hard" and "soft" theme going, with the hard bricks and soft model, so some additional things related to that theme needed to be added. My answer was the dog on the red pillow, which played to both the "soft" and the "red" concepts in the model. Now the painting needed something to the left of the figure. I thought that a glass of red wine would be perfect, but it had to sit on something. There are a couple of small tables in the studio, but they just weren't suitable. Then I spotted my studio partner's wooden crate - it was the right size and kinda funky, so in it went. Pretty perfect so far. Next, I added the lamp on the right, the easel/painting/hand on the left, and the open book on the floor. Now we've got an artist's studio. The last addition was the green rug, chosen because (a) the green is a complement to the red and (b) it was there. This was the final element to be added.

The next step was to go around the painting and bring everything up to an appropriate level of refinement. Almost everything needed tweaking: the shape of her legs and their shadows, highlights and shadows on the backdrop, color of the easel, lights and shadows of the dog and pillow, the bricks had to be darkened, and so on. My biggest headache was the artist's hand on the left - I had a helluva time getting it right, and spent several days on the damn thing. Yesterday, though, I went in and got it done in fifteen minutes. Bam, bam, there it was. Cool!

This is going to be the start of a new series of paintings. Should be more fun than some of the "Debbie Downer"-type paintings I've been doing for years, although those will still continue.

Next, though, I have to do a painting for Janis as her Christmas present. Already have the drawings done and canvas prepped. I'll probably start it on Tuesday or Wednesday, after the snow lifts.

I mentioned Jerome Witkin earlier. There's a wonderful interview with him on the Painting Perceptions blog that is well worth reading. (I just discovered this site; if you're an artist, you should know about it, too). One of Witkin's statements really hit me. He was talking about the time he met Giorgio Morandi, and segued into the role of teachers and mentors, and then said this:

"We are deepened by our teachers, our mentors, and I think the Morandi experience was so special, so special. And I think when you’re in your studio by yourself, you think, Who is my audience? If Morandi is standing behind me, or Isabel Bishop, or Bill de Kooning, or Phil Guston, or Orozco, or Rembrandt, those are your real audiences. They’re the climbers of Everest and they’re helping you to get to the top."

Wow. Too often, some artists (including me) think of our audiences as some unknown potential collector who might buy our work, and we tailor it to them in hopes of a sale. Witkin is pointing out this is too low a bar. Instead, we should paint each painting as if we're going to present it to Morandi, or de Kooning, or Rembrandt, or whoever our own personal art inspiration is. Raise the bar: do your best.

Cold Snap

2010-12-07T20:59:00.006-05:00

Well, it's hardly news that we've been hit by a cold snap. So has everybody else in about 90% of the country. We got a good bit of snow over the past two days - about 4" total, and right now the temperature is about 17 degrees outside. Brrrrrr! I took the opportunity to stay home and work on some business aspects of the studio, mostly marketing. Some highlights:

- I created a FaceBook page for the studio. This should provide a way to reach more people, and to allow those who are on FB a lot to get updates more easily. So if you're on Facebook, check it out, and if you like it, then please "like" it.

- For the Christmas season, I decided to highlight my Forest Nymph photos. They've been well received over the years whenever they've been shown. I'm running a special on them right now, with both a reduced price and free shipping over the holidays. I added some PayPal "Buy It Now" buttons onto my web site to facilitate sales. Yes, it's crass commercialism creeping into my web presence. But I already know what the answer is if I don't do it (no sales), so this is an experiment in keeping the studio financially afloat.

- I also wrote up my sorta-regular studio newsletter. That took a bit of time, since as I wrote it, I kept getting ideas for other things (like modifications to the web site) that had to be investigated or implemented or whatnot. But the newsletter went out successfully last night. And, of course, I immediately thought of something else that should've been in it. Ah, well, next time ... maybe.

A while back, I made a snarky comment about how all these time-saving gizmos are taking up my time. All the above (plus a bit more) took up the better part of two days. How much painting did I get done in that time? Zip!

So this afternoon it was back to the studio. With outside temperatures in the mid-20's, and with all the (nonexistent) insulation in our century-old building, my heater was blazing away constantly. So tomorrow, I'll get some supplies from Lowe's and put plastic up over the windows to halt the draft. For today, though, I worked on the painting of the girl in the red dress. It's almost done now, I think. Another painting is in the works. This one is Janis' Christmas present, so it's going to be quite a bit different than my normal splatterings. And it's gonna be a fun painting. Can't wait to get it going!

Painting Progress

2010-12-03T18:42:00.003-05:00

Yes, I'm still working on the painting of the young lady in a red dress. Here's the way it looks right now. Since the last progress report, I've put in the floor, rug, and red purse, and darkened the brick wall. Now I need to go around the painting and refine everything: lighting, edges, color saturation, perspective, you name it. I like the way it's coming along, but I wish it was coming along a bit faster!

Technological Progress?

2010-12-02T15:37:00.003-05:00

I got a new phone today. My old phone (on the left) was a Razr. I loved it. It's small, lightweight, well-made, tough, easy to use, and good-looking. When I got it four years ago, it was the latest and greatest from Verizon and Motorola. State of the art. Now it's so obsolete that it doesn't work with Verizon's network anymore. Seriously. Over the past couple of weeks, Verizon has been doing some kind of upgrades to their networks that pretty much knocked my old Razr off the air. I could have 5-bar reception one minute and zero the next, without leaving the room. I took it in to the store and they just shook their heads. ("Imagine ... that old fart is still using a Razr! What an antique!! It must be at least four years old ... I was still in junior high then!").

So I got a new phone. It's a Samsung and does more or less the same thing that my Razr did. I didn't want a smart phone with a data plan, I don't need to send or receive emails on my phone (I've got a computer for that), I don't text anybody, and don't want texts sent to me. Face it, I'm a codger now, and codgers don't like all this newfangled stuff. My new phone has a better camera, for what that's worth; but it's also thicker, heavier, and not nearly as good-looking as my old Razr.

So it's goodbye to my trusty old phone. There's not a thing wrong with it, it's just that technology has moved so fast that it's been left behind. At only four years of age.

Sometimes I feel like my phone ...

Thanksgiving Road Trip

2010-11-28T15:01:00.007-05:00

Thanksgiving is a time to spend with family if at all possible. I'm a firm believer in that. So this week, we went up to Baltimore to spend Thanksgiving with my aunt and cousin. In short, we had a wonderful time.

We left early on Tuesday morning. This was the first real road trip with the Volvo and it turned out to be an excellent highway cruiser. We went north on I-81 through the Shenandoah Valley, our favorite north/south route. Traffic was pretty light for a holiday season and moved well. We ran at about 75 the whole way and got over 32 mpg. That's a bit better than the 16.5 mpg that our Land Rover used to get on the same trip! Everything was great until we got two miles outside the Baltimore beltway, where we hit the rush-hour crawl. It took over an hour to make it the final 15 miles to my aunt's house in Cockeysville. I swear, every time I go up to the Baltimore and DC areas, I'm reminded of why it is that we don't live there anymore.

Still, it was wonderful to see Aunt B, Bridget, and Logan again. We caught up on what we all were doing, ate some fabulous food (Aunt B's crab cakes are WORLD CLASS, worth the drive all by themselves), watched some TV shows and movies, played with each other's dogs, and did all the things you normally do during family visits. Bridget and Janis, in particular, are two of a kind, and bond deeply over shopping at Nordstrom's. Which they did. Again.

I needed a good art fix, so Aunt B and I went to the Baltimore Museum of Art. Their special exhibit was on Andy Warhol's late work. We both thought it was quite a good show. Warhol (in my opinion) wasn't necessarily a good painter, but he was great at conceptualizing, and these works showed it. For most of them, the more you studied it, the more there was to the piece. That's what good art is all about. We then browsed through the collections of European and American art, which includes works from the Renaissance through the early 20th century. You expect to be blown away by a Monet or Van Gogh painting, and of course we were, but I particularly enjoy finding beautiful works by artists you rarely, if ever, hear of. There was a marvelous portrait by Thomas Sully, for example, and this beautiful tonalist painting by Thomas Dewing. Some museums (the Getty comes to mind) aren't too particular about the quality of the works as long as they're by "name" artists, while others (like the BMA) make sure they get top-quality pieces. It was great to just wander in a really great art museum again!

Aunt B and I spent a good bit of time going through old family pictures. I've been working on our family tree off and on for thirty years or so and take every opportunity to pick her memory. There's always something to learn. I discovered, for example, that my grandfather was left-handed - it was common knowledge to them, but since I never saw him write anything, it was news to me. I also came back with a trove of old pictures dating back over a century. One of the really cool things was a scrapbook that my grandmother kept between 1914-1916, when she was a teenager. My plan is to scan all the old photos so they can be preserved and shared. I just gave myself a lot of work to do.

We came back on Saturday, hoping to avoid the worst of the traffic crunch, and we pretty much succeeded. The weather was cold but clear, and while there were certainly a lot more cars and trucks on the road, it not as bad as it could've been (and probably is today). We ran at about 75 most of the way and stayed out of the crowds of pushy drivers. They'd come by at 80 or more, running on each other's bumpers, darting from lane to lane, trying to get out in front, and generally being in a hurry. Anytime I wound up in such a group, I'd just get in the right lane, drop my speed down, let 'em go, and then pick it back up again. Then I'd just watch 'em battle each other. We stopped about every hour and a half to stretch our legs, walk the dogs, and swap drivers. Breaks like this keep us fresh and prevent falling into the "pushy driver" category. What's the rush? We still made it home in less than nine hours.

So today has been a recovery day. Lots of clothes are going through the wash. I cleaned out the car and put up the Christmas tree. The dogs were ecstatic to be back home - they had to catch up on every smell left by every critter for the past five days.

I hope your Thanksgiving was as rewarding as ours!

Painting Developments

2010-11-20T18:16:00.003-05:00

This painting seems to be developing quite nicely. Since my last posting about this painting on the 8th, I've added quite a bit: the crate, wine glass, easel, painting, hand, book, pillow, dog, and light. Next step is to add a purse under the crate and do something about the floor. Then it'll be time to bring everything up to a more refined level of execution. This painting is a lot of fun to do. I'm thinking of doing a larger one (this is 30"x24") with a similar theme of "model in the studio".

Life Drawing in the Studio

2010-11-18T13:52:00.003-05:00

My life drawing sessions continue to go pretty well. Last night we had a new model. My drawing was pretty crappy at first, but then it started coming together.

Cari #1

Cari #2

Today I'm working on the painting of the model in the red dress again. It's been over a week since I last painted and, as usual, getting back into the swing of things takes some time. But it's getting there.

After the Stroll

2010-11-15T19:09:00.008-05:00

Well, my predictions for the Stroll pretty much came true. We had a lot of visitors. From my perspective, the numbers were up significantly from June. The weather was great, which helped bring people out in droves. As is normal (for me), I had no sales at all, but then, the Strolls are really an advertising venue, anyway. The surprise? The low levels of sales for those who normally make a lot of money. One potter said that this was his worst Stroll in eight years, with sales at about the level of a normal workday. The stained-glass artist had no sales at all, despite having beautiful work priced as low as $30. An abstract painter, who normally has a few thousand dollars in sales, had a grand total of $150. None of the few artists that I've spoken to had even an "okay" weekend. For most of them, sales were better in June than November, and that has never been the case, even during the worst of the Great Recession.

So what was up? (Shoulder shrug here). For whatever reason, people just are not yet willing to open their wallets for art. If artists are the economic "canary in a coal mine", the canaries are on life support.

I usually have some very interesting discussions with my visitors, and this weekend was no exception.

- One of them is a retired Marine officer who was in Nasariyah, Iraq, during the worst of the insurgency. He spoke of having one of his armored vehicles hit by an IED, killing six of his Marines, and the pain in his eyes and voice was still brutal.

- There was an elderly couple who must've both been retired university professors. Their conversation was deeply insightful, laced with references to classics, politics, philosophy, art history, and both had sharp questions and listened keenly to what I had to say. A most enjoyable discussion.

- I talked with several people who were planning to move to Asheville. After living here for ten years, I say, yes, this is a wonderful area, lots to see and do, a great artist community, beautiful scenery, great food, and friendly people. Please bring your own job, though, as there aren't enough to go around.

- After doing these Strolls for seven years, I now have some regulars who always stop by to see whose buttons I'm pushing. It's good to see familiar faces showing up every time.

- One of my paintings on display was Pleasantville. This one always seems to get a good response, and I had it positioned so that it was the first thing a visitor saw when entering the studio. One guy, though, made it clear that he thought this family was on the right track, and that every family ought to have their own arsenal. (Sorry, guy, I've been to Baghdad and seen what happens when every family has its own arsenal.)

After the June stroll, I wrote in this blog that I didn't want to show Warrior and Lament and other old paintings during the Stroll again. They've been in too many now and it was time for something new. I set myself a goal of having all new pieces, hopefully as good as Warrior (which I consider my best work). Well, that didn't quite happen. Yes, there were some new ones, most notably the series of portraits from Iraq, but not much that was worth showing. And in my discussions with visitors, most of whom were seeing my work for the first time, I wound up saying things that sometimes caught me by surprise, that made me think about the direction of my art from different perspectives. So I'm torn between ideas. On one side, I wanted to move away from paintings about war. They're inherently downers, and I want to do something a bit cheerier. This is the impetus behind the "model in the studio" series that I've been thinking about. On the other hand, there are still some things that can/should be said in paintings about war. Warrior, Lament, and You Don't Understand are three very powerful paintings about the effect of war on people, but there are more in that vein that can be done. When Lament was nearing completion, and I knew it was going to be a good work, I felt "This was the kind of painting I was meant to paint". That's not a feeling that you walk away from.

So. Where to go from here? Is it one or the other? Both, in moderation? I dunno. I think I just need to sling some more paint and let it work itself out.

Prepping for the Studio Stroll

2010-11-12T08:14:00.005-05:00

This weekend is the fall Studio Stroll. My studio is in Asheville's River Arts District, the old industrial area around the river and the railroad yard. Starting about 25+ years ago, artists began moving into the old buildings and using their large spaces as studios. Then, about 20 years ago, they started opening their studios once a year to the public. Now we have about 150 artists in the District and we do the Stroll twice a year, in June and November.

This time, it looks like we'll probably have a very large turnout. The weather is looking really good all weekend. Gallery owners that I've talked to are saying that they're seeing an uptick in the number of visitors and buyers. It's as if those who have money have been sitting on it for a long time, waiting to see what happened with the economy. Now they think the worst has passed, they still have money, Christmas is coming, and they feel pretty good, so they're starting to spending some of it. About time, I say.

Not that I expect much of it to come my way during the Stroll. Some artists will sell a whole lot this weekend. For the most part, the pieces that sell are about beauty, color, and warm feelings. The potters and glass artists will do well, as will my new neighbor who does stained glass mosaics, and also the fabric artists. Among the painters, the abstract artists and landscape painters (those who do Appalachian vistas) will do best. As for me, I do edgy works, often confrontational, about such cheery subjects as the effects of war, political satire, and aging. While I'd say that some of my paintings are beautifully done, they're not about beauty and warm feelings, so most are still, umm, in my "private collection".

Still, I participate in the strolls as a way to show a lot of people what I can do. I like talking with the people who come through. Opportunities pop up, sometimes years later, from chance meetings in the studio. So while it's frustrating to end the weekend on Sunday evening with everything I started with on Saturday morning (which has happened on more Strolls than not), it's still a great advertising opportunity.

This time, I'm showing Warrior (hopefully for the last time, at least at the Strolls), Pleasantville and Ann's Slander, along with the series of small portraits from Iraq, a few other related works, and my Forest Nymph series of photographs. And I've got a few other surprises out, too.

So I've been working hard, along with Christine, my studio partner, at cleaning the place up and making it presentable. What a slog that's been! Old industrial buildings are dirty; artists' studios are dirty; combine the two and you have the potential for a monumental pigpen. We weren't that bad, but it took a lot of work. For the past few months, we've had a massive infestation of stinkbugs - evidently it's a regional or nationwide problem - and the little buggers were everywhere. In boxes, on shelves, in paint drawers, behind supplies, even hiding inside paintings. I was prepping one painting today and found six stinkbugs hiding in the back, between the canvas and the stretcher bars. Unbelievable. So if you come to the Stroll this weekend and take home one of my artworks, and then find a stinkbug in it, rest assured I won't charge you extra for it.

'Nuff said for now. I've still got a lot of preps to do tonight and it's getting late. If you're in Asheville this weekend, come by and visit, I'd love to see you!