A Maze - Page 78

Here is the next page of my first maze. First the scanned and edited version.

Page 78

Here is the same page in the wild. This is a statue of Saint Clare of Assisi. She seems a bit taller than I would have thought. How do I know this is of Saint Clare? Well it is in Santa Clara.

And then there is this plaque on the fountain pool.

I didn't know this until just now, but today, August 11, is Saint Clare's memorial day. Here is a site that explains it.

Meanwhile tomorrow night there is a Street Dance in Santa Clara. Come one, come all!

I'll probably skip the dance. After all Saint Clare is the patron saint of television.

Here the statue is after sunset.

That's it for today.

Jonathan

Goulet Pen's August 2011 Ink Drop - Part 1

The theme for the August Ink Drop is “New Kids on the Block”. As the name implies the inks featured are ones that are new in one way or another. Some are new to the market and some are new to the Goulet Pen Company. For me personally, these inks are all new. Three of the brands are ones I have never tried. So I am looking forward to learning a lot about them.

The inks in the August Ink Drop are:

Aurora Black

Montegrappa Bordeaux

Noolder's Blue Nose Bear

Sailor Jentle Epinard

Waterman Havana Brown

Here are the samples lined up and ready for action. As usual Brian and Rachel Goulet have put together an interesting package.

For my tests I thought I'd do another multiple page maze. It will probably end up being four pages long, but I might get carried away by the color combinations this Ink Drop makes possible.

Anyway, that's it for now.

Jonathan

A Maze - Page 77

It is Monday so it is time for another page of my first maze. First the scanned and edited version.

Page 77

Here is that same page in the wild. Again it is at Point Pinos in Pacific Grove.

That's it for today.

Jonathan

Lamy Safari

Until a friend introduced me to the wonderful world of fountain pens almost two years ago I always used fine tipped ballpoint pens to draw my mazes. The mazes are drawn with somewhat narrow passages so when I use fountain pens they must have fine nibs. Up until recently I only had five pens, 2 Pilot Vanishing Points, a Ducati Limited and 2 Noodler's fountain pens. I had done well to resist buying anymore.

Anyone who hasn't become afflicted with the fountain pen bug would think five pens is quite enough. Of course they are wrong. Five is not even a half dozen or a six pack. How can anyone be expected to survive without at least a six pack. Plus five is not even an even number. So I went ahead and bought two more pens, to give me a total of seven pens. I know seven is not even, but even is in the word. Plus seven is a prime number. Of course, five is too, but six isn't. So once you have six, you might as well get seven.

Once I had a good enough reason to get them, my choice for these two new pens was simple. I got two Lamy Safaris. They are relatively inexpensive and they have the ability to use bottled ink if you purchase the available converter. They are available in a wide variety of nib sizes, EF, F, M and B. Mine are both Extra Fine. The Goulet Pen Company sells the nibs in steel and black steel. I like the look of the black nibs.

This pen design has been around for many years. It has been in production since the 1980s. Still it is new to me as almost all fountain pens are. Here are some pictures of one of my new pens.

The O-Ring at the base of the finger grip serves as the friction point to hold the cap in place when the pen is not in use. This seems to be an efficient design feature.

The pens are made of a sturdy, but lightweight plastic. There is a triangular shaped grip which happens to fit my hand perfectly. If you post the cap it shifts the balance too much towards the rear to suit me, but with the cap off it feels terrific. I could draw all day with one of these pens. If you look at the Lamy site you will see that the Safari is listed under their “Young Writer” category. I think that just means less expensive, or less snobbish. At 55 I think I'm still young enough to use one (or two) of these pens.

The Extra Fine nib puts down a line very similar to the Fine nib of my Pilot Vanishing Points. Here is a page of my fifth maze in progress. The orange part is drawn with the Vanishing Point using Diamine Pumpkin. The blackish part is with the Extra Fine Safari using J. Herbin Poussière de Lune.

I assume that as with any mass produced nib there will be variation in the smoothness of the feel when writing. This particular pen is very smooth straight out of the box. I haven't tried my second Safari yet to see how it performs.

I will be putting my pens to work on the August 2011 Ink Drop right away.

Jonathan

A Maze - Page 76

It is time for the next page of my first maze. First the scanned and edited version.

Page 76

Here is the same page in the wild. This picture was taken on a recent trip to Monterey. This is some of the rocks at Point Pinos in Pacific Grove. It is often foggy on summer mornings here. On this day the foggy burned off around one in the afternoon. If the stays offshore you can see the beautiful sunsets from here.

People swarm to the coast to watch the sunset. So much so that it is sometimes difficult to find a place to park. They stand, sit, or jog and watch the sun plunk into the sea. Then ten minutes later they are gone. The afterglow and twilight last for almost an hour. I think they miss the best part of a sunset. We love to watch the gathering darkness.

Anyway, that's it for today.

Jonathan

Drawing the Line - 23

Early on July 17^th I had a chance to roll out another segment of my Line Around The World Project. If you have been following the progress of this project you know that it is nearly two miles long now. About a third of a mile of its length was done along the coast of Big Sur earlier this year, but the majority has been done north of my residences in Santa Clara, California.

With this segment I reach a major goal, with is El Camino Real. I don't know about the rest of the US or the world for that matter, but El Camino Real is famous to us Californians. When we are in grade school it is a rite of passage to build a model of a Spanish Mission in order to learn about the Spanish influence on this area. Every school kid learns about the string of missions, forts and other sites which were built by Spain to secure their territory in North America.

A great part of their method was to use missions and their economic structure to convert the natives. There were 21 missions along the length of California from San Diego to the Mission San Francisco Solano up in Sonoma. Here is the Wiki page that explains the mission system much better than I can. These missions were linked together by a road called El Camino Real and part of that route in its modern form is where this segment of the Line ends up.

Anyway, here is the start of roll 79.

Here is the view from the end of roll 79 looking south.

Looking north you can see I had to cross another side street.

Here is the view of the Line after crossing this small street.

Here if the view from the end of roll 80 looking towards the south.

To the left is a house and right where roll 80 ended is a window. As I was attaching roll 81 to the end of roll 80 I was approached by a guy. He seemed to be quite interested in what I was doing. He asked me what in the world I was doing and I replied, “I'm drawing a Line around the world.” This didn't seem to surprise him much, because he asked me where I had started it. Since he was a local I could answer with a street name, “Newhall Street.” He nodded thoughtfully and asked the question I think had been on his mind from the beginning, “Do you have a dollar that you can spare?”

After parting with a dollar I lost my audience. Or so I thought, for once the guy had wandered off the window in the house next to me opened. “What are you doing?,” the guy at the window asked. I think that you can guess my reply. He looked at me like I was out of my mind and I explained that I would be picking up the paper when I was done. “Good Luck,” he said, pulling the drapes closed but leaving the window open. I figured that he was going to check to make sure I cleaned up my mess.

Here is the end of roll 81 looking south.

Looking north you can see that we have almost reached El Camino Real.

And here the Line has reach the crossing. The El Camino Real is like a great mighty river, except for the fact that there is no water and you don't need a bridge or swimming skills to cross it. It is quite wide and a very busy street. Luckily Sunday morning is the best time for a crossing.

Here is the view north. Actually it is to the west, but going north on the road.

And here is the view east or south along El Camino Real. I'm rolling out roll 82 at this point.

Fortunately I had thought to bring along an extra roll of the line, because roll 82 (the fourth roll of the segment) ran out before I reached the other side of this wide road. I sat on the median strip and attached roll 83 to the end of roll 82 and made it across.

The Line turned to the north. We are on the way to San Francisco and El Camino Real can take us all the way there.

Roll 83 didn't quite make it to the other side of Monroe Street, but this is the end of this segment.

That's it for this segment.

Jonathan

A Maze - Page 75

Here is the latest page of my first maze. After this one there are only 15 more to go. It seems like it was only last week when I began posting the maze. Time goes so fast!

Here is the scanned and edited version.

Page 75

Here is the same page in the wild. I took this picture of the maze out at the Sunnyvale Baylands Park this evening. It is amazing that in an urban area of millions of people you can find a spot where you can get away. During the week it is possible at this park. There is a great picnic area with benches, tables and BBQ pits. There is a large playing field where you can fly a kite or RC airplane. Then of course there are paths and levees that take you out to the baylands. This link has a lot more information about this area.

Here are some pictures that I took earlier this year out on the trails when the mustard was in bloom.

This is looking across a salt pond toward the bay itself. The trail goes clear around this pond and even further.

Here is the 'You are here” map for the pathways. This is a wonderful area for mountain biking on easy trails.

That is it for today!

Jonathan