The Boring, What I Did for My B-Day Post

Slept late, natch. Not late enough, but still later than when it's social acceptable to make lots of noise outside. Have I mentioned that my neighbors are somewhat insane when it comes to lawn care?

From there, we went to the Butler Institute of American Art to see the The Art of Warner Bros. Animation exhibit. The Butler is a great little museum, if you're one of those that look at museums as speed trial events, you could probably do the whole place in about 2 hours. We didn't see everything they had on display but we spent about three hours there. The Warner Bros exhibit was contained in one room, a small collection, but was really fantastic.

They had cell illustrations, background illustrations (those were really fabulous), character model sheets, animation sketches, storyboard sketches, promotional art sketches, and most interesting of all, a shot schedule. That was an amazing document to see. It wasn't the prettiest thing. Basically the shot list listed the background illustration, cell number, effect or camera motion for every single frame to be shot. This is the directors instructions to both the camera operators and the illustrators, because this list is developed after the story board, but before any animation sketches are completed. It shows how long each scene should take, how to synch up to voices (already recorded), and the timing and pacing of the jokes, which were highly controlled. Just really excellent to look at, more than the model pages (which outlined exactly how the characters were to be drawn, and what parts to emphasize (such as how Tweety went from having the longest of his 3 hairs being in back to being in front, how Porky's head should be the same volume as the rest of his body and feet).

The exhibits were also a lot of fun. The Lloyd paintings (oil and water colors) were very interesting. Lloyd was a local artist, but his style varied greatly over his career and it was interesting to see paintings he executed in the same year showing impressionism, folkism, and a very highly polished academy style. Then to compare them to the Stengels they had as well, that was just excellent. While the Wythe exhibit was long ago they still were displaying eight paintings and water colors by Andrew, NC, and Jamie (father, grandfather and son). They also had their newest acquisition on display, Rockwell's "Lincoln, Rail-splitter." We didn't go through their permanent collection display this time, but they do have a lot of great work there (a few by Edward Hopper, some John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt, and their gem, Winslow Homer's "Snap the Whip."

On the way back home we drove through Mosquito Creek State Park which mostly consisted of the lake, boat launches, and fishing areas. We did see one trail head, but considering how close it was to the road, we didn't bother to walk it.

Back home I spent my birthday cleaning out the garage and getting the yard ready for summer. We put out the rain barrel and the garden hose. I then picked up some of the large branches in the yard that came down during the last ice storm.

Finally, we grilled out for the first time. Most of you don't know this, but grilling is a competitive sport in my family. In my own opinion, I'm still the best. I use charcoal, not gas, and have a portable Weber Smokie (19"). It doesn't have the deep well for the charcoal that my Mom's grill has, which took a little getting used to (the fire tends towards the hotter and faster with my grill). We grilled some hotdogs (hey, they were available and thawed) and some steaks. The steaks were dry grilled (no marinating or sauce) which isn't my favorite way, but we forgot to start soaking them the night before and I just wasn't in the mood to rub the steaks or use up sauce that mostly burns away. They came out pretty well anyway. Using the hotdogs I was able to map out the fire and then knocked back the oxygen to keep the stakes from drying out. At the end I did open the grill top to caramelize the fat by placing the steaks on the hotest part of the fire and pouring in the oxygen (I'm not a big eater of fat, usually I trim it off). This is the exact opposite of how I do chicken halves, BTW (sear top first, cook a little way in, turn on to bone side and finish grilling through with a slow cook).

Then we saw a new (to us) movie, Charlie Wilson's War. I wasn't very keen on seeing this when it was out, but Bette bought it on sale. It actually wasn't bad. They took some liberties with the story, but didn't flinch too much when showing just how things were back in the early 80s (want to know just how different business culture is today as compared to when I started working, Charlie's office isn't all that much different than many offices at the time). They also handled the end of movie pretty well. There were only two moments that threw me out of the movie, both involved the combat footage (well, three now that I think of it). First off, when the HIND helicopters circle in for their first attack shown, the rocket tubes are empty (it's real quick, but you can see daylight and open tubes). So the rocket fire is CGI (and I'm assuming the minigun as well), also the people running when shown from the cockpit was just a little off (uncanny valley moment). The second time was when they showed the first shootdown scene, and the two other guys run out from behind the bushes and fire their Stingers after the first HIND is destroyed, too Hollywood (we want to show a BIG change). Then there was the one helicopter blowing up as they did the over all scene showing the shoot down successes over time, it was a Huey. Difficult to tell as the whole shot was the helicopter in a ball of flame, but that crew compartment is very distinct, and very different from the HIND and most Soviet airframes. It was one of those, WTF? moments. Overall, though, I recommend the movie, if just to revel in the character of Gust Avrakotos.