Category Archives: Personal

Year In Pictures – February 2003

Saturday February 8, 2003

Back on SATURDAY 02/28/03 I started the YIP Project.

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Snow on spiral stairs. Forecast 4-6 inches. More than 12 arrived. But, very fluffy.

This began as a picture-centric project with just captions below. As explained elsewhere, I have been plagued by a bad memory of my day-to-day life. So my first swing was to keep a digital camera with me and take pictures every day. Here is the first, following a snowy day:


Sunday February 9, 2003

PAMELA WORDEN PROJECT

Work is well underway on the Pamela Worden Flash movie project. Miriam Goodman stopped by and proffered some advice on the project. As with every project I do, this one is taking several times longer than anticipated.b

MORE WORK ON THE PAMELA WORDEN PROJECT

Further work on the flash movie.c

 


Monday February 10, 2003

Regular Day at Work

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A messy desk is SOP for me.

Work on Six Sigma proposal

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Scribbling on the white board with Terry Burton & Sherry Gordon preparing proposal for Six Sigma project at MKS.


 

Tuesday February 11, 2003

Off to the Sports Palace in Central Square

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Wednesday February 12, 2003

Dark matter and energy make it to NYTimes

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WMAP project reported in the NYTimes. Front page below the fold. There is dark matter and dark energy. The universe is 13.7 billion years old.

Dark Matter, Dark Energy in the Universe

A relatively cheap little satellite has confirmed astrophysicists theories that most of the universe is filled up with stuff they call “dark matter” and “dark energy”. I have called my brother Ed about this and he assures me that Parker (nephew age nine) will shortly have this all figured out.

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Thursday 02/13/2003

The back of Simmons Hall located on Vassar St. Steven Holl Architects. This was a bit of a surprise seen at night. Karen and I had visited it during the day when the multi-colored facade seems a key feature .

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Friday – February 14, 2003

Temperature at 7am.

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SATURDAY 2/15/2003

MR HANDYMAN COMES TO THE RESCUE

Sink drain clogged up. Resisted drain snake, required industrial strength chemicals.

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Sunday – February 16, 2003

PREP FOR A VISIT TO THE “OTHER” MR. ROTO-ROOTER MAN

Prep for colonoscopy. Cancelled next day because of blizzard.

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Monday – February 17, 2003

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Kinnaird St. Cambridge during snow storm.

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A Harvard house along the river.

About 6 PM. Record 27.5 inches of snow, but still nothing like the Blizzard of 1978 that lasted for two days and was accompanied by 50 mile per hour winds.

 

 

 

 

 

MONDAY 02/17/03: THE BLIZZARD OF 2003 – CATCHING UP ON READING

Taking advantage of the record snow storm, we stayed home. This lead to a catching up on old New Yorkers. “to Google” has entered the everyday vocabulary. The most amazing thing about Google is how wonderful its search capabilities really are!!

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Tuesday – February 18, 2003

SHOVELING OUT

After Karen and I did our Kinnaird St,. duties we walked over to Richard and Nancy’s house on Harvard Street to shovel their sidewalk. They had taken off for a “school teacher’s holiday” to Florida. When we got there we discovered that their tenant had done an excellent job. So, with an excess of moral energies we found Dorothy and Jim’s car on Pine St. to extricate.

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Pine st. Cambridge

 

Went out to dinner with Linda Larson

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A favorite dinner spot with Linda Larson. Best ambience in Watertown.

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Saturday February 22, 2003

Trip to Hartford CT.

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KCD at the Sheraton in Hartford, scene of our weekend “holiday”.

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A real destination breakfast spot in Hartford. Replete with the owner of 30+ years hobbled on crutches on a corner stool.

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Mel Bochner at the Wadsworth in Hartford

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Atheneum Museum






Sunday February 23, 2003

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Breakfast in Avon, Ct. Second day of continuous rain



 

Monday February 24, 2003

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new Apple 14.1 inch iBook put into service.


Tuesday February 25, 2003

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Seen in the bathroom at work… did someone misplace a fig leaf?



Wednesday February 26, 2003

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envelope for the CD

Help Pamela Worden set up her show on Church St. Cambridge. Included a computer showing the video I made, “House Book” an animation of her artist book about her husband’s decline.

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3/19/2002 – Mr. Wonderful Makes a Movie

Mr. Wonderful Makes a Movie

March 19, 2002
A couple of weeks ago Miriam Goodman emailed me about a possible role in a student movie. I got in touch with Tova Goodman(link added in 2019), a student at Boston University, who let me know that they were looking for someone who could be “professorial”.

Hmmm, I thought, just the role for the Great Pontificator, Mr. Wonderful.

But, not wanting to lead the young’uns astray, I sent along my “head shots” .

Karen created this array!

If these didn’t scare them off…….

One email later and the Director, Chris Zatta(link added in 2019), signed me up to play the role of Professor Connel with a script called “Forensics”.

Dir. of Photography Rachel Cushing and Sound Boom man, James Kolowich, get set up.

Discussions between Dir. Chris Zatta (center) and actors Christian Chandler (left) and Michael Makowski.

The Saturday shooting began with the scenes in a park in Malden and abutting woods (good place for corpses).

Dir. Chris Zatta (in gray coat center rear) watches as actors practice getting the body out of the rear seat.

Sound and camera at the ready.

What is the clacking of the board on the slate at the beginning of a scene all about?

We all have heard dialogue like this:

“Scene 12, Take 3…..

sound, roll camera…..(clack)…(pause)

Action!”

So, what is the clack about when the assistant smacks the hinged top down on the slate. I asked the Director of Photography, Rachel Cushing, exactly this question.

The answer is instructive about the technologies of movie making:

The sound recording system and the camera are independent. So, the sound of the hinged top smacking down right in front of the rolling camera makes it possible for the editor to later synchronize the visible signal with the sound signal to merge these elements together.

Indoor Shoots

Since Professor Connel only appears in about a third of scenes in the movie, I only had to hold out in the raw weather for half the day. The indoor shooting for the “lab” scenes began in early evening on the eighteenth floor of a Boston University dormitory.

All around miracle worker and gaffer Hero Ngauv sets up for the lab scenes. Director of Photography Rachel Cushing helps out.

 

 

 

 

Repairs are made.

Preparation for gore. By the way, the stage blood here included peanut butter and chocolate syrup among its ingredients.

Tova Goodman loading film into cartridges for the camera.

More Indoor Shooting

Sunday brought more shooting indoors at several locations. Other scenes took place in Prof. Connel’s classroom. Four actors get ready to rehearse.

(from left, Christian Chandler, Michael Cuddire, Michael Makowski, Anastasia Barnes)

Sound boom operator, James Kolowich, holds for a sound check in the classroom.

A run through of action at the back of the class.

Prof. Connel (Mr. Wonderful in costume) in this office scene. Director Chris Zatta (head at top left) making a point about the scene.

Director Chris Zatta begging Mr. Wonderful,

“Mark, this is Take 19!

Can’t you say your one line, “Oh”, without making it sound like a question!!”

A Management Aside

This photo symbolizes for me how well the students in the production demonstrated well-developed leadership and team skills.

Notice that Chris Zatta, has gotten down on his knees so that his face is at my level. Instead of standing over me giving directions, he is conferring with me, a very different experience.

I saw him handle a whole range of situations with actors and others with such sophistication.

At points, members of the crew would proffer suggestions for how to interpret a scene or overcome a technical barrier. All of this happened in a collegial fashion. No one hesitated to ask others on the team for suggestions and help.

At every point, everyone, regardless of role, tossed in readily to move equipment and tussle with trash and pick up. No prima donnas here.

It has been my experience in industry that this sort of team work comes hard, and, not infrequently, only after some explicit training on team work.

Perhaps we should send managers to film school??

In the Can

So, its in the can.

I can only hope that most of Mr. Wonderful’s gaffes end up on the cutting room floor….

See The Movie

Come to the screening of the movie (and a bunch of other student-made movies) on Friday, May 17, 2002 at 7pm at the BU Photonics Center, 8 St. Mary Street.

(St Mary Street is off Comm. Ave on BU’s campus. Directly across from St. Mary
Street on Comm. Ave is the Marsh Chapel. There is a Radio Shack store on the
corner.)

Seating is free and open to anyone, but it is limited so you’ll have to get
there early enough to make sure you can get in.

Each of the movies will be 10 – 15 minutes in length. Contact me for details.