New Olympika.net

The Wood figures should be done tomorrow, but for now here's a preview of our gym's new website. I am redesigning the site with html to be more user friendly, to enhance our gym's identity/ aesthetic, and to reach a wide range of viewers by cross-contacting social media websites. I am planning on designing a mobile version of the site as well for easy browsing on iphones/ blackberries.

(Like my UM themed browser?)

Web Design

Website that I designed for a local Italian restaurant - entirely in Spanish. Check it out:

www.lacasadelalasagna.com

Copán Ruins Panorama

270 degree view (almost a complete wraparound)

1st pass of black/ red

They're still rough around the edges but this gives you a pretty good idea of what it will look like. I'll probably go back in with black and red once or twice more on each to build up the paint/ clean up details.

Starting to paint the figures....

A lot going on (designing 2 websites, and starting to paint this installation project) but not a lot to show yet. Just another photo of the wood cutouts pre-painting....

farm

Beautiful view at Raul's family farm. The coast was directly behind me on the horizon. Raul's dad's assistant, ready for trouble with a loaded shotgun, was five feet behind me.

Installation Update - Starting to cut

Did a test cut today with one 4x8 piece of wood (wanted to make sure everything 'worked' before buying all four boards.) Things went surprisingly smoothly. There is a nice wood shop on Raul's family finca (farm), the jigsaw we have is a serious cutting machine, and the cutting went way smoothier/ easier than I suspected. Props to #artschool for teaching me some wood skills.

We opted for 3/8 inch plywood. I was worried that it would be to heavy, but the pieces themselves when cut out are very light, sturdy, and I think will pin flat against the wall easily, without braces.

Gonna do a paint test tomorrow....

Olympika Installation Update

This is probably the layout I will use when cutting out the figures to make efficient use of the material of each 4x8 board (the brown rectangles). I managed to fit all 7 pieces in + the Olympika logo on 4 sheets of wood which is good.

Once I get hold of a projector and pieces of wood, the work in the "real world" will begin....

Olympika Installation Brainstorm

"Sketching" for a new installation at Olympika Gymnastics here in Guatemala. I think the figures will be cut out of wood and be about life-size. I'll update my progress on the project here....

One more.

Proof that I was actually there, with my new haircut (photo courtesy of Jacob, my kayaking buddy):

Rio Dulce/ Livingston Photos

With semi-interesting captions:

Definitely in the jungle (Rio Dulce, on the boat "tour".... I don't think stopping at the mystic "Isle of Birds" counts as cool when I've seen more crows on an Ann Arbor telephone wire.)

Waking up at 6AM to kayak was a sweet idea (my Kayaking-friend Jacob from Israel in the FG.)

My room at the Finca Tatin (my bed, 1 of 4 in the upper room, was a whoppin $5/ night.)

Deep in the gorge. Underground hot springs/ rivers, dense vegetation, steep cliffs. Pretty sweet.

Part of the Siete Altares in Livingston. It's cooler when it rains because the water flows over the rock ledge. Like a tool, I did a back flip off the rock ledge for good measure. Alberto, my tour guide, filmed it (he also taught me some words in a Mayan dialect.)

No pics. sorry.

...There hasn´t been internet at my house for the past week, which has kind of slowed down my digital-self. I got a camera card uploader though for my point and shoot, so I should have pictures from my trip to Livingston/ Rio Dulce up soon.

November might be a busier month for me; I have several Graphic Design projects to work on for the gym, a couple of trips that still need taking, summer camps starting next week that I´ll be teaching (school is over here), and a few more books to pile through now that I´m finished with the titanic Atlas Shrugged (minus the 60 page Galt manifesto.)

Tambien, yo tengo que recordar para aprender Español....

Contact Sheet 1

...I've been pretty good with my 1 drawing per day rule, but don't have a memory card uploader right now to prove it. You don't want to see all of my pencil doodles anyways.

I spent a little bit of time just now playing with some photos from my thesis in Photoshop after a recommendation that the photos of my dioramas might have potential to sell commercially (ie to magazines and whatnot.)

"But there is also too much focus in school on literature written mainly for an audience of critics and teachers. That's a shame because the true glory of literature lies in its ability to hold an audience spellbound with the power of narrative, which is our oldest and most prevalent way of understanding the world." -a quote from David Taylor.

Trying to keep this in mind more in order to loosen up and just write/ tell stories.

Antigua/ Agua

Forgot to post this photo I was lucky enough to take last week in Antigua. The sun rises very early (this is before 7AM I think), making for a nice view of the street with the volcano Agua in the background.

Atitlan part 1

The weather finally cleared up for a few days, and my friend Phil and I seized the opportunity to spend a day at Atitlan. This is a lake formed by the collapsed caldera of a volcano (I think that's right), can be crossed by a motor boat in about 30 minutes, is over 1000 feet deep in places, surrounded by volcanoes, you get the idea.... We arrived in Panajachel and then took a boat to Santiago to do some exploring, and had a very good time to say the least. Some pictures:

The water looked awesome about midday:

View of a volcano from the Eastern shore:

...street food can't be beat. 50 cents for this snow-cone, which was topped with pinapple, apple, coconut, and plantains, all soaked in a sweet syrup:

Jade/ Macadamia nuts/ Rain

It's been tough traveling on the weekends because it has been raining so much year. It's rained everyday since I've been here, and far more than a normal "rainy season" in Guatemala. Every time it rains it seems like another mudslide/ bridge collapse/ some other obstacle clogs traffic and makes adventuring more of a chore than fun.

So this past weekend was yet another trip to Antigua, which isn't really that interesting to me, to be honest. However, I went with Bob, and we visited a guy he knew through his old job who was a Jade carver. This guy, Francisco, was very warm and friendly, inviting me and Bob into his home, telling me about how he gets Jade (he goes up the nearby volcano and finds it himself), and how he works with Jade using various diamond-based dental instruments, drill presses, sanders, etc. We had some hot chocolate and cookies while there and some good conversation (his Spanish was easier for me to understand, as he was polite enough to speak slowly). Hopefully it won't be the last time I run into this guy (who reminded me distinctly of Gandalf):

The next day, we travelled to a Macadamia nut farm, had a small breakfast, met the owner (a guy who really liked to tell jokes, and expected you to laugh at them. A bit awkward, but still a very friendly guy) and then visited the old town (San Miguel Escobar) where Bob use to work when he first came to Guate several years ago. There was a goodbye party for a friend of his with steak/ beans/ cake/ rum all served in a tiny, humble home. Really cool, a lot of fun, met some interesting, self-admitted hippies and whatnot.

I'm hoping to get to Atitlan this upcoming weekend, before leaving for DC with my teammates....

Taste the Rainbow

Ever wondered what happens to old school buses? You probably haven’t, but now that I’ve got you thinking, here’s your answer: old school buses from America get brought down to Guatemala, are given extreme makeovers, and become part of the city’s public transportation system.

These “chickenbuses” traverse the roads in Guatemala City and its suburbs constantly, and they come in an amazing variety of colors and styles.

Check out these photos, taken in just one outing into the city (I am building a collection). This is only maybe half of the buses I got photos of today, and I probably saw at least three times as many color combinations:

Oh and this one is pretty ridiculous:

The all-red buses like the one above aren't as visually interesting, and they only serve the heart of the city, but I can't get over the choice of combining a Mercedes Benz logo and symbol of Christ with the Confederate Flag. Spot on, Guate!

Panoramic shots

These are two panoramic shots that I took on the trip Raul and I took to the stables (the Polo Field) where he picked up the horse trailer and also ordered some trucks of sand for his field at the farm.

The top shot was taken on the drive back home. The field itself is low in the valley and right near lake Amatitlan, so to get there you have to drive down a winding mountain road and go through a small village. There was a lookout spot at the top of the climb back into Guatemala City, so I stood there, snapped 7 quick photos, let Photoshop do its Automerge thing, and voila.

The bottom shot is actually taken from the Polo field, and is 5 shots stitched together in Photoshop.

In both photos, the tallest peak (on the left hand side, always capped in clouds) is actually Pacaya, the volcano that I climbed the first weekend and that erupted back when I first visited in May....

Meet Invitation

A meet invitation I designed for the upcoming "Copa Quetzal/ Quetzal Cup" this May 2011, hosted by GIC and Olympika (the gym I work for):

Beagle

The newest member of the Molina household....

Aprendiendo despacio....

My Spanish is slowly improving- I usually pick up maybe 10 new words a day. I feel like pretty soon I will be able to at least coach very well in Spanish (already I am pretty decent, though I use cave-man Spanish... lots of imperative verbs and single words: "Run!" "Round off!" "Watch me" etc....) Combining that with some gestures, I have been able to get my point across maybe 75% of the time.

I worked with the boys class/ team all day today by myself (for the first time!) without too many problems. Of course, half these kids at the gym know English anyways (at least a little) so I usually have a translator or two by my side to help me out.

I also got to train this morning with Mynor for the first time (at the Guatemalan National Team training center.) That was pretty cool; I hope to get down to their gym a few times per week. It's in the city, though... and driving in the city is freaking nuts....

I am starting a couple of different graphic design projects for the gym here and, in other news, just submitted my first real-person grant to the Arts and Sciences Council of Charlotte, NC (I'm trying to get my dioramas in a permanent home, like a library.) Fingers crossed that I get the money, though I doubt I will - as an emerging artist who is not accustomed to writing a grant, I don't think anything will come of it, but I guess you have to start somewhere....

Mordor

This past weekend was real cool and kind of crazy. My friend Phil down here has a motorcycle and we decided to take the weekend and get out of the city, thinking that climbing Pacaya, the volcano that erupted back in May, was the best option. Hopping on his motorcycle (yeah, we wore helmets) we drove about an hour till we got to the volcano.

The ride was pretty cool - one of the advantages of being on a motorcycle is that you can weave your way through standstill traffic, saving a lot of time. One of the disadvantages though is that you get wet if it is Guatemala's rainy season, which it is, so we got wet.

Still, we made it to the base of the volcano without getting drenched, purchased our entrance fee and hired our (required) tour guide for a total of about $12.50 a piece. On the uneven and rather strenuous hike up the volcano, our guide, a 15 year old kid who looked about 13, pointed out various signs of Pacaya's recent eruption – large chunks of rock that had spewed from the crater, bashed in tin roofs, and trees, which had been stripped of their vegetation by the fires:

Without warning, the trees gave way to a rocky, very uneven landscape of solidified ash/ lava – in the picture below you can see the end of the tree line in the fog on the right (this dog had followed us all the way up):

Walking out onto this landscape was kind of surreal – looking ahead at our guide, I felt like we had Gollum showing us the way, except that this kid wasn't schizophrenic:

The ground was uneven, sharp, pourous – layers upon layers of dried lava. In certain places, if a hold in the ground went deep enough, it was easy to start fires simply by holding a stick in the gap between the rocks, and letting the heat underneath ignite it:

Once we got a decent fire going we roasted some marshmallows, feeding a few to the dogs that had followed us (for that very reason) the entire way up:

Once the fog cleared a bit, we got a good view of the crater (the little trails of smoke on the right are not fog, but from fires up near the crater):

Though we couldn’t go nearly as far as people were able to before the eruption, and though there was no visible lava like there was said to be previously, it was still a really cool, unique experience that was worth every bit of the cost.

Afterwards, we drove to Antigua, met up with Phil's cousins for dinner/ drinks, and got a 2 bedroom room at a hostel for $5 a piece. It was no five-star resort, but for a private room and shared bathroom/ computer with internet/ resident golden retriever, I'd say it was a great deal. Nothing crazy to report in Antigua though, except that the drunks pee anywhere, in any direction, so you have to watch out.

Donde Vivo

So a couple of pictures of where I live. This is my room (created from 3 images with Photoshop's photomerge tool. Sweet!):

Usually, each morning I get up and go read a little bit with a great view of the mountains:

The maid usually makes breakfast for me while I'm reading. It's awesome. She's very nice and doesn't speak any English, but I've already improved my ability to communicate with her (I'm glad that I can thank her properly now and not feel like a dumb tourist simply yelling "Grassy-ass!" for example).

Also - I am happy to report that I got ahold of my suitcase, bought a cell phone (for under 30 bucks!), and have helped coach at the gym twice now. So I feel properly settled. My Spanish is improving quickly, especially for coaching, but a large number of the kids at the gym also speak English! So while it helps having several translators in any one group, they are also as eager to practice their English with me as I am to practice Spanish with them. Maybe not quite the "immersive" environment some get, but still very very fun....

Down and Dirty

After one flight cancellation, some scrambling to get on a flight at the last minute – where I dropped my water bottle straight onto a man’s head while loading my bags overhead while dripping with sweat from running to the gate – I made it to Guatemala, although my suitcase didn’t. We’ll have to go pick that up from the airport if it comes today.

I had originally reshuffled a bunch of clothes into my carry-on bags so my suitcase would make the 50lb weight limit, so luckily I’ve got a complete change of clothes on hand to tide me over. Thanks for your packing skills, Mom.

It was very rainy last night on the drive back to Raul’s house (where I’m staying). On the way, a fallen tree (from the saturation in the ground) almost blocked our path and had pulled down the phone lines to our neighborhood. I asked Raul if this kind of thing happened often because of the landscape/ rain combination. “Only when you’re here,” was his reply, referencing the mudslide from my first visit:

Apparently my presence exacerbates the natural disasters of the country? Not awesome-

Anyways, I will spend the next few days getting situated – doing things like buying a cell phone, going to the gym, and retrieving my suitcase.

2 days till Guatemala

The summer has been slow. Real slow. I guess that was what I needed - time to really soak in college life before turning into a "real adult." Now that I am one, and still have no idea what to do with myself, I've decided to move to Guatemala, where I'll be coaching gymnastics through the end of November. With such a big change of scenery, I'm going to use this blog to update everyone as I attempt to get a handle on life in Central America. I anticipate my posts will be a mixed bag of stories, photos, and artwork... basically, anything that happens as a result of my time down there that I think is worth sharing.

Most of you reading this know that I went to Guatemala back in May for a brief visit. My four-day stay turned into 9, thanks to a volcanic eruption that covered the city in ash and a tropical storm that caused mudslides and a sinkhole in the middle of the city. This perhaps worked in my favor, with the delay giving me more time to convince myself that this is an area of the world that I'd like to "figure out" as best I can.

(images from my first trip):

I will be staying with my host Raul, a graduate of the UofM gymnastics team in 1995, and his three kids here:

I'll probably be coaching level 3/4 team girls. Here's a picture of me with some of them:

This is the gym I'll be working at (the floor is a really good spring floor):