Tablet Repair

Posted on by Thor

My Motion Computing Tablet started running some diagnostic that kept me from writing. The ominous screen popped up every other time I booted up the computer. Naturally I panicked. I called Damon Natch Burke, who is the brother of local artist Tracy Burke. “Tracy got all the artistic talent and I got all the analytical abilities.” He said. Damon used to work, engineering rocket payloads. A poster in his workshop showed a schematic of one of those rockets.  He now works an Embry-Riddle as an Observatory engineer. He came across the same warning signs and decided to attack the issue from the inside out. First he researched on Google to see if any other people had the same issue. I did the same thing, but he always seems to find more in depth reports. Somehow he hooked his computer up to mine and he ran a barrage of tests.

He let me sit in and sketch as he took the tablet apart. The tiny screws were balanced on top of his own iPad. The pressure sensitive screen was popped off and he finally found a way to inspect the heart of the machine, a tiny hard drive. He approached the problem from all angles. If the hard drive was to blame, he wanted to be sure he ordered the right one. When he rebooted and the diagnostic screen came up again, he asked how long I had let the diagnostic run. I had let it run all night and when I saw it hadn’t finished by the next morning, I had assumed it was frozen. As we sat and talked, he let the diagnostic continue. He placed his ear to the machine and listened for movement in the hard drive. I joked that the doctor needed a stethoscope. He actually had one and he decided to use it. “You can’t draw me using the stethoscope however.” He insisted.

As the hard drive continued to click and whir, Damon suggested I go out and get some lunch.  When I returned, it was still working. I went back home to get all my software disks in case the hard drive had to be wiped clean. In the end, the machine fixed itself. I had just not been patient enough to let the program finish its work. The experience was a wake up call. I need to start backing up all my data. I’ll do that soon, when there is more time.

Blues Dance

Posted on by Thor

After repairing my computer, Damon Natch Burke and his wife, Amy Davenport were going to take a Blues Dance Class at the Zebra Room (2609 Gowen Street, Orlando) . Damon suggested I meet him there so he could give me my repaired tablet. Of course I asked if I could stay and sketch. Damon talked to the instructors and they were fine with the idea. Cars drove inside what looked like a residential backyard and parked on the lawn between orange trees. I arrived at the same time as a petite girl from Knoxville Tennessee.

 Unfortunately the air conditioning in the Zebra room was broken. That didn’t stop this group of dancers. People kept arriving with fans and one couple showed up with three huge industrial fans. It was bliss when the breeze hit. With all the fans on however you couldn’t hear the instructors talk, so the fans were turned back off. I liked the premise that dance is an intuitive dialogue, or conversation between couples. Simple exercises started with couples facing each other and touching palms. They needed to stand close and move as one. They stepped together forward and back to the beat of the blues. When a lead dancer would spin his partner, she could go with the flow of his up beat pace or slow down the spin at the apex and dip in slow motion. Her desire for a slow sensual movement could then be followed up by the lead. The sensual dance conversation could continue without a word.

Lindy Exchange

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The Orlando Lindy Exchange is a yearly Swing Dancer’s dream marathon. For close to a week, swing dancers from all over the country converge on Orlando to shake their hips and kick up their feet. Damon Natch Burke is my tech guru and he helps organize the event. I found out there would be a free dance in the Lake Eola band shell and I had to go down to sketch. Walking around the lake, I could hear the energetic retro beat and soon I saw flashes of color as people twisted and turned on stage. There were up to 50 dancers on stage and boy did they know how to dance! When the song changed, people would switch partners to add some variety to their steps.

It had been boiling hot all week, but on the day of the dance, the temperature dropped drastically. An ice cream vendor stood at the foot of the stage offering his ice cold treats. I had a sweatshirt on and when I slipped into the shade, I started to shiver. Still, when couples strolled past me away from the stage, they were glowing with sweat. It was getting towards sunset, yet when Damon walked by with his dance partner, he said they had forgotten to eat since the night before. They were heading out to find some breakfast. A couple saw that I was sketching, and they stood directly in front of me and “vogued“. He said, “Check out this move!” and he leaned his dance partner back, arching her back over his arm. I laughed, and said, “That’s great, now hold that for about 15 minuted!”

A young woman liked the sketch. She asked if I was cold and I shivered dramatically. She said, “If you want to warm up, then come on up on the stage and dance! You’ll warm up fast.” I was still messing with washes on my sketch, besides I don’t know any swing moves. Chances are, I would get up there and trip up the whole swinging crowd. Fred Astaire, I am not. But, with a few lessons, I might be able to keep up with these hip swinging kids. I’ll put it on my bucket list.

Vaudeville Rehearsal

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After a full run through of all the Vaudeville acts, rehearsals started on the second show on the bill, a Video Game themed burlesque. Shy La Buff and Corey Violence had a number based on a creepy game called Bio Shock. The two of them share sensual sips from a syringe full of Adam, a blood like substance. Seductively Shy pushed Violence back into a chair. He ran his hands up her legs as she dug her high heel into his chest. They were rehearsing in the Lounge of Theater Downtown while the other burlesque numbers were being rehearsed in the main theater.

Of course I had intended to get Shy interacting with Violence but as soon as I sat down to sketch, the director had notes and they didn’t continue rehearsing. I gave up on the idea of including Shy, so now it looks like Violence is relaxing in the lounge. I was distracted as well because my tablet PC had crashed that morning. Damon Natch Burke, my tech guru wasn’t sure of the problem yet. I needed the tablet to do the quick digital sketch of Poodle Murphy on target for the knife thrower. For this rehearsal, I brought a video camera and tripod, hoping I could shoot video as I did a traditional sketch but I was missing a video connector. I tried to set up the equipment in the dark but failed. I needed the tablet. I sat sullenly on the stage, much like Violence is sitting in the sketch. Being unable to perform, I felt like so much ballast.