Life ain't so bad at all...
I don't even know if I can express how I'm feeling right now about the passing of Michael Jackson. As someone that grew up listening to his music and other artists who were influenced by him, his work served as the background music to many of my memories. Regardless of what happened in his personal life, I hope that people remember him for his talent and his ability to unite people regardless of race, age or language through his music.
I will be tearing up a dance floor tonight in celebration of his life and I know I will not be the only one.
Rest In Peace, Michael Jackson!
Maker Faire was pretty awesome. Robots! Steampunk! Motorized cupcake bikes! Life-sized Mousetrap! Am I going back next year? Hell yeah!
Besides being slightly damp all weekend due to the rain, Yosemite was beautiful and it was pretty awesome to get out of the norm with a group of people I'm usually indoors with (as in sewing or cosplaying). I hadn't been there since I was 6 or 7, so everything was entirely new to me. We rode bikes around the main valley floor, hiked up to a couple different waterfalls, had a picnic by a stream and had two different meals in the rain. Judy also revealed the wonders of a Dutch Oven with apple cobbler, cherry cobbler and this uber-omlette breakfast thing!
I'll be the first to admit I'm a concrete jungle kind of girl, but this whole outdoors thing on occasion is pretty sweet.
Looks like I'll be strapping myself to my sewing machine for the next couple of weeks. Dangit.
With any other costume, this view would've been pretty boring. But giant hoopskirts plus frosting-based colors equals us looking like cupcakes and a pretty awesome photo! I dig how it looks like we're on the move somewhere with our wands held out!
In case you can't tell, we're the Three Good Fairies from Sleeping Beauty. I would be the giant pink thing known as Flora.
In more ways than one.
Since it's been closed they've gotten several businesses and agencies to move in and even developed a chunk of area for residential use. However, a large majority is home to several decaying buildings that used to be filled with the hustle and bustle of a busy naval base.
The area brought back a lot of memories for me. My Dad worked there for the majority of my life growing up and it was always kind of this nebulous place in my imagination. It's where my Dad would disappear to early every weekday and was the cause of him not being able to talk about work much. Mare Island did a lot stuff with nuclear submarines for a time, so there were a lot of projects my Dad was involved in that were top secret.
Accompanied by my Obaa-chan, I learned how to swim there in its overchlorinated pool (and almost drowned once... ha). I went to birthday parties at its bowling alley. I spent many a Sunday morning grumbling along while my parents went grocery shopping at the Commissary. Later on after it had closed, I used its empty streets to learn how to drive with my Dad.
So Zignormous and I wandered around and did our first jaunt in "urban exploration". We took pictures like tourists of everything and anything we thought was interesting, climbed up precarious ramps and stairs, wandered through a burned building, left footprints through dust covered floors, stepped on broken glass and braved strong gusts of wind on rooftops. Needless to say, it was hella fun!
Zigizzle took some awesome photos which you can see here. I seemed to keep up a theme of empty chairs and/or texture with mine. Here's some favorites:
Nevermind the fact that I feel like I just got run over by a dump truck, or that at one point while waiting for the inauguration to start I lost feeling in both of my feet because of the cold, or that I didn't have enough time to pore over the exhibits at the Newseum...
Just being there, within arm's reach of millions of people all celebrating a historic event, made this an amazing trip. I laughed, I cried, I shivered (a lot) and it was worth every penny, every mouth-gaping yawn of exhaustion, every sore-foot step.
Thankfully, my gloves did not prevent me from taking a ton of photos which you can check out on my Flickr. Once I figure out how to edit some of the video I took I'll upload that as well.
It was amazing and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat!
I'm going to be updating my Twitter like a crazy person while I'm out there, so if you feel like reading my gibberish and seeing pictures as stuff's going down check it out!
http://twitter.com/positivespace
Be back on Thursday! I'm so excited!
