Studio Kanzen,

this evening I discovered someone/something called “SubPixel”. My sister asked me what videos were mine on YouTube, saying that she did a search for “subpixel” and found something that looked like porn, so didn’t open it at work. Something about a guy with his shirt off and a girl with her hands somewhere near his groin. “No, I don’t think I have anything that looks like porn, or anything with a guy with his shirt off.”

What was she talking about? YouTube. Search.

I see… SubPixel: Clone a Willy Penis Mold Kit Review

Quite amusing, but no, not one of my videos.

Hi, I’m subpixel. I’ve been pushing pixels under that name since 2002 when I started taking club and party photos for Australia’s dance music community at InTheMix: “sub” as in music, and “pixel” as in pictures (digital photographs). On later reflection it occurred to me that the name had other interpretations, such as “subpixels” meaning “images from a subculture”, or “subpixel” being the thing (or person) underlying/behind the images I was capturing, especially since I was responsible for the images and rarely “in front of the camera” in my own photos, or those taken by other photographers in the Sydney scene.

After being an InTheMix photographer for a year or so, and having made many new friends along the way, I was more inclined to go where some of those friends were going, and less inclined to take on ITM photography assignments elsewhere, though still continued taking photos, including as “official photographer” for an underground party called Undercurrents, and today have an archive of some 70,000+ images and short video clips. I was without a camera – I mean a camera I cared to carry with me, since, now I think about it, I did actually have at least one other – for about 6 months two years ago, and found that to be a bit depressing. That slowed me down a bit, and I don’t seem to have been taking as many since then (or perhaps for a while before), though do go through spurts on occasion.

Photo madness in decline, I am still behind the pixels nonetheless. I acquired subpixels.com in 2003, and continued to use the name, especially for creative projects. In 2006, after a late night laptop-and-video-projector good times retrospective for a friend’s farewell at a city fringe music bunker (another friend’s house with a killer sound system and wall to wall wax) in Sydney, I was asked to supply visuals for a live electronic music gig called Laptopjam, and so the subpixel name moved on to be my VJ moniker.

I appeared mainly at live electronic gigs, VJ meetings and house parties in Sydney until I was roped in as resident VJ for a fledgling club night (Mind! Reggae Dubstep) in Brixton by Italian DJ Unity Selekta along with Earl Gateshead [Trojan Soundsystem] when I moved to London in 2008, strangely enough from my Gumtree listing looking for a place to live. Around the same time I discovered a local VJ community, VJlondon, where I made friends, had fun, and through which landed various gigs around London including a couple more live electronic gigs. I also joined the sizeable contingent of VJlondon crew appearing at LPM 2009 – Live Performers Meeting – in Rome, apparently the only Australian representative. Through Dr.Mo, who organised most of the VJlondon gatherings, I met architect and artist Alex Haw of atmos (currently working on the CLOUD for the 2012 London Olympics), with whom I collaborated to realise the Weather Projection installation at the inaugural Smart Light Sydney festival – me, a Sydneysider, scrambling to write the code in London (and in Rome after LPM!), and Alex, a Londoner, scrambling to put together the hardware (and content) in Sydney – such a mixed-up world we live in! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to Sydney to see the result, but I’m back in Sydney now, and have rejoined forces with the live electronics party/promoter Midi In The City as well as taking up residency with the closely related TECHnique crew for their monthly techno parties and festival vibes at the Earthdance Sydney 2009 Campout. I have just completed another international collaboration, this time with Venetian producer and deepindub netlabel founder, Maurizio Miceli: a “VJ clip” for Way Out [DIDVJ002] to promote his latest EP.

You can find clips from and information about past VJ gigs at SPXL.TV, and other stuff like my blog including experiments with Processing at subpixels.com.

spxlOrigamiButterfly

View sketch page for source code.

This program is an optimisation and modification of the fabulous Origami Butterfly by Kyle McDonald, which in turn is a modification of the Origami Butterfly Method by Jonathan McCabe.

I haven’t changed (at least not that I’m aware of, and not intentionally!) the actual image process, just the implementation and how the the paper folds are determined – well, the last fold, anyhow, which I’ve animated,

The modifications to the implementation resulted in a massive speed gain (about 3x the original), enough to have “smooth” animations instead of one still image every two seconds. The “animation” I have done is pretty basic, and might be extended in future to animate more than the last fold, or to animate that fold in some other manner.

Oh, and I added another source texture – a photo of Funckarma at Plastic People in Shoreditch that I took last year. Neon glow FISK. Awwww yeahhhh. :o)

-spxl

Esfera_mod_by_spxl_6
based on Esfera.pde by David Pena

Source code:
Esfera_mod_by_spxl_6.pde
Hair.pde
Oscillator.pde

On Thursday 18 December there was another VJlondon.org meeting at Cafe 1001, and again there was a triple-head setup with three projectors onto the back wall of the main room. Nice!

I’d decided that this time I’d work on this Processing sketch to have some 4:1 content for the massive screen. Up until this point, the tentacled object in space had been stationary and not especially interesting-looking. On Thursday morning I started tweaking the program with a view to actually being able to VJ with it, adding a bunch of new features like being able to move it around, make it bigger (“zoom”) or smaller, and more easily change some of the parameters. The tentacle shape changed a bit, as well as the appearance with some new oscillators to change the red, green and blue of the colour, and some mystery 1′s and 0′s on the surfaces. I’m no expert on lighting yet, but at least I managed to do something about it being so dark (as appears in Esfera mod by spxl 5).

I was perhaps a little too engrossed in what I was doing, and at some point realised I was already running late for the gathering!.. and rushed off to Brick Lane with my still warm code. The setup at Cafe 1001 was improved on last time, with a large table for laptops, etc bhind a raised bench with the projectors on it.

The tentacled space thingo was quite well received by the crew, though at that stage it was a bit of a beast to deal with effectively. Having pointer and keyboard inputs, I plugged in my Wacom and handed it to Rob to move it around while tapping at some controls myself on the keyboard. Even at 1920×480 it seemed to run pretty fast (and so it damnwell should!), and with the ultra-widescreen had a nice spacious and spacey feel about it.

I also tried running the radial gradient array sketch at that resolution, but, being a 2D pixel-based affair, my machine just wasn’t fast enough (or rather the program is too intensive) to get above a crawl instead of scintillating flashing colours.

Nevertheless, both sketches have been updated since then, and the Game of Life sketch created, and I’m starting to get a bit mental with trying to put nice comments and such on everything as well as make improvements and add new features. I think the commenting is taking as much time as anything else!.. and of course generally tidying things up, rearranging files on the webserver, updating all the past blog entries with Processing sketches to have a consistent look, and so on. I think I should really investigate creating a plugin or filter or something for WordPress – maybe a little database to keep track of the sketches and format them all nicely. I’m already running in to versioning issues, and changing the structure of the files is bad news for old blog posts!

Yesterday I did some work on creating a better timewarp effect – rather than change the speed of all of the oscillators, instead manipulate the “number of milliseconds” that have passed (this value is used in calculations by the oscillators) and also modify things like how far the object moves or rotates for the frame. Since the program was using simple easing logic, I’ve fudged it by multiplying the easing factor by the square of the (less then 1.0) timewarp factor, or leaving it alone if the timewarp factor is 1 or more (making the movement “faster than the mouse”, as it were,  seemed like a bad idea).

You see the brighter patch of red on the top-right of the sphere in the screenshot? That’s caused by five point lights just near the sphere arranged around the funnel of text. unfortunately the Java applet doesn’t seem to play on my machine (nor does version 5 of this sketch), and I think the lights (or use of lighting generally) is what causes it to fail. Then again, I don’t actually know, so this is only a guess! If you have the PDE installed you should be able to recreate the sketch from the source files.

-spxl

It is a musical household and I think I am going to like living here. That is assuming the cold doesn’t make me dislike everything! :o)

-spxl

Tuesday 28 October

It seemed to be quite chilly when I was out last night, and this evening, when a houseguest came inside, they announced that it was snowing outside. What?… I open the window to take a closer look outside, and sure enough… snow!

I guess it is time to go shopping for a warm jacket then. Especially since my last jacket was nicked a couple of months ago at the Notting Hill Carnival (or just after it, since the carnival was closed for the night at that stage).

Speaking of things getting nicked, I might recount a tale from Saturday night. I had a mind to write about it just after it happened, but instead became engrossed in playing with visuals and making some new videos. Put on your slippers and dressing gown, grab a blanket and come sit by the fire…

Shunned // Shunt

Saturday night, 25 October, I caught a bus down to London Bridge to check out the final night the Netaudio mini-festival at Shunt Bar. It had been running there the previous two nights without me knowing about it, and I was keen, from what I’d read it was about, to go. There was some warning about arriving early as the bar tends to get very busy, but I didn’t manage to get down there until a bit after 9pm. When I arrived I saw a queue. Walking, walking… where does it end? Woah, it goes around the corner and far beyond that. Eventually find the end, wondering if it was going to be a complete waste of time. Soon enough, one of the staff came down and said that, based on last night’s experience, queuing from around that point we could expect a three hour wait. Yes, three hours. And, given that they close the doors at 11pm (the bar itself closing 2 or three hours later), that essentially meant there was no chance of getting in at all.

Disappointment!

Well, what could he recommend nearby that might be somewhat similar? There’s nothing else anything like it, apparently (I’m not surprised, really), so I decided to head back to see what Shoreditch held in store.

Spacelapse // London Bridge

I decided that I would walk back to Shoreditch. A chance for some healthy exercise, even though it was a bit chilly, and reflection on why I hadn’t left the flat earlier to go to the Netaudio gig. Also hoping that I didn’t get lost, given that I didn’t have a map.

Crossing London Bridge, I decided to take a bunch of shots of the Tower Bridge and see if i could make a ‘spacelapse’ animation something like I have seen made by Dr.Mo. And so I’d take a long exposure (4 seconds) photo with the camera resting on the bridge’s railing, take a bunch of steps (about 8), and snap again. This tooka little while, and I had a few strange looks from people, but noone getting in my face or being aggressive, which is a good tradeoff. :o)

In the end, I’m not sure that the photos are of suitable quality, nor perhaps great enough quantity to make a decent animation, but I haven’t really played with it much to see for sure. A project to put on the back burner, I think.

Seeing the Light

It didn’t seem like too long before I was back at Bishopsgate, Liverpool Street Station, theh Shoreditch High Street. I didn’t know what was on or where I wanted to go, but had a general idea to check out some place(s) that I hadn’t been to before. One such place was The Light. Open. Plenty of people around. In I go. Seems to be a lot of (fumbling for right term) “classy”/snooty/suited/gold-digger-y people around in the bar on the ground floor. Perhaps nice to look at, but I didn’t attempt barging in on anyone’s conversation.

The music seemed irritating-less enough, so went upstairs to see where it was coming from. At the door I’m told that there are some private parties, but it is also open to the public for a fee. How much? Two pounds. Okay, I think I can deal with that. :o) The night is called Mediterraneo, though I’m not sure exactly what the Mediterranian connection was. The DJ had copies of a mix CDs scattered at the front of the booth for the taking, so I stashed one in my pocket before taking my stuff down to the cloak room.

Had a dance for a while, and a few beers (I’m still not overly keen on beer, but I don’t find it so terrible any more that I can’t drink it), and ended up chatting for some time with a guy who was evidently friends with the DJ (since he was behind the booth) about music production and I can’t remember now (three weeks hence) what about. I remember he was from eastern Europe, but can’t remember if he was Polish or from somewhere else.

Anyhow, had a nice enough time there, had a good dance, had a chuckle at a couple of trashy drunk girls doing crazy stuff all around the place, and all for not much more than the entry price might have been for the Netaudio festival. (Note: I have to talk it up else feel depressed about not getting to spend my tenner at the Netaudio festival!) And I’d finally seen the Light.

The Light is scheduled to be closed down, for redevelopment, I believe. There’s a big poster about saving the light in the downstairs bar.

Canadians + Kebabs // Hoxton

I was hungry well before leaving The Light, so was on a mission to find some food. I stopped by T-Bar to see what was happening – about to close, so continued on. Takeaway Chinese sounded good, so head over to the place on the corner where Great Eastern Street meets Old Street, thinking “honey chicken”… but finding they were about to close when I arrived, with a few measly scraps of stuff I wasn’t excited about, so left empty-handed. Made a decision to head back over to the Caltex / Somerfield minimart on Shoreditch High Street, but walking along Old Street decided to check out Hoxton Square on my way through. In that directin encountered a kebab shop and decided that food now was better than food later, so went in and queued for service. A couple of guys came in after me, and I ended up talking to them about the menu, wondering just what exactly an order of “meat and chips” would land us. It seemed like a “good idea”, since so far I’ve not been impressed by the pocket bread they seem to use here to house the “kebab”, only I wanted one of those big juicy peppers with it. I think that’s what I was after most, since my first encounter with them in kebabs when I was in Berlin last year…

Anyhow, kebabs, meat & chips, whatever, we were talking for a bit before deciding to exit the shop. I have a vague recollection of a someone walking past and asking us some strange question; we were all in some sort of take-the-piss mood and I think we confused them, even though it seemed their initial intent may have been to confuse us. It was three weeks ago now, so can’t remember really what that was about. One of the Canuks spied some girls and made a comment about “follow the legs”, so we parted ways. Shortly after I saw one of them giving a girl a piggy back down the road. Time for another chuckle.

Byron // Old Street

On my way home I encountered an Aussie who was looking for “Dalston Street”. He’d had a few drinks and was asking pretty much everyone he passed, saying he’d only been in town for a day. I didn’t know where Dalston Street was, but figuring it is in Dalston, thought I’d help him at least find the right bus to go there, especially since it was in the direction I was already walking and not far away.

Anyhow, this guy is from Byron Bay, and is staying with friends in London, just arrived the night before. Working or studying in Byron? Studying. At the SAE? How did you know?! .. It’s the only school I know of in Byron. Lucky guess. Talked briefly about the school, asking about whether they have the (multi-)media, 3D etc courses up there. Yep.

On to more important things – someone said to me not so long ago that Kinglsand High Street is notoriously dodgy. Not the whole area, just the corridor of the street where a large number of people pass through every day and night. I told Byron (I didn’t catch his name) about this, and he said he knew something about it, and that’s why his wallet was in his front pocket. Okay, good start. Anyhow, at the point where I was about to say ti him that if he sees anyone looking a bit strange in the area (we were on Old Street, near to Shoreditch High Street / Kingsland Road, at this point) to stay away from them, we were greeted/accosted by a group of four guys.

Artful Dodgers // Old Street

I still had my hands full, eating the “meat and chips” as I walked, and the meeting started with one of the group asking Byron “What’s your name?” Uh-oh… this is not something you expect to be asked by someone you’re just walking by on the street. Given what I was just abou to talk to Byron about, I was instantly suspicious. I was asked my name too, I think in a bid to keep me distracted. I was trying to keep an eye on what was going on with Byron and saw what appeared to be the leader of the group give him a big hug, reaching straight for Byron‘s back pocket – not into it, just feeling the outside to see if something was there. Oh, shit… I’m trying to ignore the guy who is more or less standing between me and Byron, being wary of him coming any closer or trying to touch me, still holding my dinner, but he is successful in distracting me enough that I can’t quite follow the action. I see the group leader hand Byron his phone – some sort of (intended to be seen as) playful/friendly gesture, and I knew there was a good chance that the phone wasn’t all he’d managed to get his hands on. Byron, still fairly drunk asked somehing like “Where’d you get that?” and might have even thanked the guy… I made my way closer, raising my voice saying “Come on, man, we have to go”, putting my hand on his shoulder and trying to physically drag him away. The group of guys let him go, and walked off towards Shoreditch High Street.

Now was my chance to tell Byron what I was about to say before we were interrupted, and suggest he check his pockets. Sure enough, his wallet was gone. Byron asked what to do. I didn’t really know, and suggested he could try asking for it back. Four gangsters vs. me and a drunk guy didn’t seem like good odds if there was any (more) trouble… Byron chased after them. Seemed like a bad idea at that moment. I checked my own pockets and continued walking along, hoping I didn’t have to make an emergency call to the ambulance and/or the police. Amazingly enough, when I caught up with Byron, he’d retrieved his wallet. He thanked me repeatedly, and found that his ID was still in there and either his credit card was still in it, or he’d left it at home, I’m not sure which (and I’m not sure if he was sure).

Anyhow, Byron stll needed to get home, so I continued on with him to the bus stop on Kingsland Road to find out what bus he should take. It started to rain when we were there, so I asked another passenger if they could try to guide Byron on to the bus, which they would be getting themselves. I had to assume Byron would know where to get off (I asked him, and he seemed to think so), and I had to dash home myself in the rain (using the foam takeaway pack as a tiny attempt at sheltering myself). As I went, I hoped that Byron didn’t get done over again before making it back to his friend’s house…

-spxl

The Dark Ages

It seems that I’ve been accursed with darkness the past few days. First the bulb in my lamp went, then this evening my ceiling light. Grr. Off to the shops for some groceries (and light bulbs) I go. I arrive home to find a flatmate cooking in the kitchen. A minute or two later..

*blink*

Power outage.

Not paid the bills?.. Wait, it’s not just us. Okay then. Good thing I’m planning to head over to Brick Lane just now for the vjlondon.org meetup. Hopefully the power will be reconnected by the time I get back. One can hear a lot of shouting and cursing in the local neighborhood. And cars blasting their horns. I’m sure that helped loads.

I put away shopping, pack my laptop, and head off. Walking down the road I note that this power outage is quite extensive. Even as I go further down Brick Lane, no lights. It’s not until Quaker Street that there seems to be any consistent power.

Coming out of the darkness and into the light

Listening to music on the way to Cafe 1001, the refrain from one track, “It’s just another excuse!”, seemed entirely appropriate for the situation. Come on London, what else can you throw at me? Darkness? Pah!

Emerging from the blackout zone and into happy lights and fun land, when I arrived at Cafe 1001 I found Dr.Mo and some others setting up, and a documentary film crew. And people practicing Capoeira. nebulus (nebulus design on Facebook, nebulus design videos on vimeo) had his custom hardware controller and had brought two projectors, added to a third and a Triple Head To Go made for a superwide 4:1 display across the back of the club. Nice! His realtime generative 3D visuals looked pretty amazing too.

I was asked to be interivewed by the film crew, which was for a University Video Project, and which is itself to be art of a 30 minute TV show. Not sure if I’ll be on TV. I’ll let you know if I am (or will be).

After the interview I asked to connect my laptop briefly to the triple-head in order to detect the screen size, and Mo suggested to set up properly instead of just testing it. After a small amount of confusion (thinking I should see more than one external display) I was beaming out on five heads (if you include my head and the laptop screen, though these latter two didn’t display the visuals output).

Of course none of my source material is in a 4:1 aspect ratio, so I had to look for footage that wouldn’t look too odd when stretched, and was also able to trim the top and bottom of some other clips on the fly for an acceptable result.

Actually, it was better than acceptable. It was starting to look pretty rad, if you don’t mind me reviving an old schoolyard term. I was well pleased with what I was seeing, and that, really is the point of doing this sort of thing in the first place.

I also liked seeing the custom visuals nebulus was pumping out. He had one laptop closed with another sitting on top of it, subsequently repeatedly overheating the lower machine, which was a shame. He managed to get things running on a single machine, though not quite as smoothly (and with, apparently, less complex visualisations).

Overall I had a pretty good night. When I arrived home the lights were back on (and flatmates were home).

Thanks to Dr.Mo for organising the meetup, nebulus and Silent Eclipse for the projectors, Deepvisual and whoever else supplied equipment.

A mini review from Deepvisual on the vjlondon forums:

Source: Next VJ meeting – Thursday – 30th of October – Café 1001

more fun…

very few of the regulars turned up???
instead we had a surprise visit from the lovely Joanne (Silent Eclipse) and an interplanetary freak-out from Nigel (nebulus) with his astonishing planetarium visualiser software.. George ( sub pixel) then took over the triple head for a while and put Neon through its paces.
the Student film crew were out in force, I found out I had started visuals before they were all born…
and we even had a walk-in VJ who had heard in the street that there were VJs in the venue this thurs and came along.

See a video of me playing on the triple-head below.

-spxl

subpixel visuals: live at Cafe 1001 – vjlondon meetup, Thursday 30 October 2008 from subpixel on Vimeo.

Video link: Mind! Reggae Dubstep | 22 Oct 08 by spxl

I created this video from clips and photos I took at Mind! Reggae Dubstep on Wednesday night (22/Oct/2008) at The Dogstar in Brixton.

I wasn’t counting on the mindlondon.com branding across the top being made so blurry in the YouTube version, and the titles could certainly do with some improvement. I might try making a nicer overlay next time. I figured I’d already spent enough time pfaffing about, and it was time to release something!.. The render, re-encode, upload cycle takes quite a bit of patience.

-G.

And yes, I shall continue with the mind puns. I hope you don’t, er, get bothered so much by it. ;o)

I went to Denmark last week to celebrate the double birthday I share with one of my best mates. It’s a somewhat disheartening thought that I’d not seen him for a year, but while I was there I managed to forget about all the time (and troubles) in between and it felt like I’d never left, and the previous birthday was only a week or so ago. Time is a funny thing, or at least our perception of if can be. It’s all in the mind! More tangible, and certainly tastier, were the nice dinners I had – Chinese in a restaurant on Thursday, fried pork (a Danish specialty) at a friend’s house on Friday, turkey at another friend’s on Saturday – not only because of the food, but because they were occasions with friends.

-G.

-G.

MIND visuals by subpixel

MIND! :: Roots :: Reggae :: Dancehall :: Drum & Bass :: Dubstep :: Breakbeat

Music by:

• Earl Gateshead (Trojan Sound System)
• Unity Selekta

Visuals by subpixel

Wed 01 October, 10 til 2

The Dogstar. 389 Coldharbour Lane, Brixton SW9 8LQ

Directions: Exiting Brixton tube station, turn left. Turn left at Coldharbour Lane (KFC is on the corner). The Dogstar is a couple of minutes walk away on the right hand side of the road. Easy! :o)

First instance – Brick Lane, Saturday night: a guy handing out flyers spotted one of the Don’t Panic flyer packs nearby and picked it up (so it seems flyering is a two-way street after all!). I mentioned to him that they can usually be found in the record shop down the road (though when I went to said record shop on Monday evening I didn’t see any).

Second instance – in “The Shadows in the Cave” (part 3 of the documentary The Power of Nightmares), Lewis Z Koch from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists says on dirty bombs:

The danger from radioactivity is basically next-to-nothing. The danger from panic, however, is horrendous. That’s where the irony comes. … (Is) Instead of the government saying, ‘look, this is not a serious weapon; the serious danger of this is the panic that would ensue, and there is no reason for panic. Don’t panic.’

I did a search for the phrase and found an interesting reference. George Zebrowski asked Arthur C Clarke in an interview, “If you were addressing humankind, and all its groups were listening, what advice would you give?” Clarke’s answer:

The best advice I think was given by Douglas Adams: “Don’t panic.”

There you go. Enough said, really.

In other news… the last Mind! gig at The Dogstar (Wed 17 September, as advertised in my previous post) didn’t go so well. I’d arrived early to set up only to find a football match onscreen, so no access until that had finished, then being told by the bar manager to stop what I was doing when trying to set up later, citing liability concerns. I’d made sure I was back in London from my trip especially for the gig, so felt a bit miffed that I’d left Berlin that morning for nothing. I’d even booked a hostel in Brixton that night and the following day to be close by. Hindsight is, or can be, painful.

The Sunday of that weekend saw the inaugural Sound on Vision event at Vibe Lounge on Brick Lane. I arrived around 2pm to set up and was on from about 5pm. I decided to start with a minimal setup and build up the content from there. I had some heat from Mowgli as he didn’t think it was eye-catching enough, but had someone ask me about one of the clips I used while I was playing and later had some positive feedback from someone else who had been watching. Mowgli noted some lack of contrast, suggesting that images usually need to be blown out to “too much” on your screen to look okay as a projection. Criticism noted. I’m going to have to work out a way to increase the contrast whilst still allowing for a dreamlike mixture of multiple layers, which might in itself be spoiled by too much contrast! Experimentation required.

This past Friday night I went to the British Film Institute (the BFI) at Southbank in London for the AV Social, something I’ve been looking forward to for a while now. It is an interesting venue, and I had some idea to go back on Saturday, but I left it a little too late to head down there in the evening, so had a look around Brick Lane instead.

I’ve also recently been reading about OpenFrameworks, the D programming language, and Ruby (as a language and as Ruby on Rails). Nothing exciting to talk about just yet. I installed Aptana Studio to try out Ruby on Rails, and was following some tutorial only to have something fail that probably shouldn’t be failing (setting up or starting some kind of server) before getting to any code. I did drop a simple “Hello World” script on the webserver to see if it will run, and at least that worked. As with the visuals mentioned above, experimentation required (and study!).

Latest news is that I’ve finally booked a flight to Denmark in October for some birthdays. It will be nice to see one of my best mates and some other friendly faces there, and no doubt become reacquainted with the legendary “Fisk” (Fisherman’s Friend and vodka).

-G.