Stretchy stretchy

Round and round we go - early bird PT visit!

Having lunch with my Lu at 24

Emily's Natural Fibers Project

Inspired by Nature - Reclaiming Urban Decay

Using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for the first time!

Mom and Lu - NCL Tea

Computational Fashion Design

Check out this workshop in England!

Here's a fun article that Emily might want to share with her teachers and classmates. Lucy, when you read this, think about how your math and science classes will help prepare you for the new world - a world where art and science are becoming more intertwined than ever before. I think it is so cool how Sally has embraced the technology that is required to be in the design field and she even talks about how she would enjoy teaching others how to use CAD systems, etc. Let's all make it a great Monday!

Janie's Christmas Card

Janie Singletary's hand painted Christmas Card. 

Pups in the snow

Snow day in North Carolina

Go Perry!

Lu's Woman Power Wednesday Breakfast

You don't see this everyday

Nick Foles and our buddy Carly - Go Chaps!

Proud of this article - Make it a Great Monday

I hope all of my girls will take a minute to read this article: What makes Autodesk Great?

Proud to be a Fortune 100 'Best Places to Work Company'! 

Here's an excerpt:

What could possibly make an employee miss work during six weeks of paid time off?
 

At Autodesk, it starts with the profound sense of pride 93 percent of employees share in being associated with the Autodesk name. The company was founded in 1982, with a mission to create a “golden age of engineering.” Autodesk invented AutoCAD software, a PC-based computer-aided design tool for architects which for the first time gave people the ability to “see” and “experience” their designs virtually and in three dimensions.

People around the world, from students and hobbyists to professional designers, engineers and the special effects folks behind movies like “Avatar,” use the company’s software products. This adds up to more than 12 million professional users and over 115 million consumer application users. Many employees are especially proud to note that over the past 18 years, Autodesk solutions have been behind every winner of the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in Film.

So it’s no surprise that nine in 10 employees are proud of what they accomplish as part of the Autodesk team.

“The software we make is livelihood for several millions of people on the Earth,” one employee says. “Be it engineering creativity design tools or software to create movie graphics the work we do has direct impact on people.”

Down the stretch they come

Camel racing season runs from early April thru May and I have been invited back to apprentice as a jockey in the elite league........but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We left Zagora headed to the Erg Chigaga dunes and the Moroccan Sahara. First we stopped at a cooperative of seven families that make clay pottery, plates , bowls, etc. Watched a teenage boy make a plate out of wet clay in about one minute. He was sitting with from the waste down in a pit in the ground with his feet turning the spinning wheel. As opposed to sitting at a table. Tough working conditions. Don't remember what happens next, but it will take about a week for that plate to dry in the sun, then be fire dried in a kiln and then painted by the women in the coop. This type stuff has been for sale everywhere I've been.

Almost to minute when we drove off the road into the Sahara, it started sprinkling. How many can say their first trip included rain. About 3 hours of off road riding thru some small dunes and some hard pan, we reached the Erg Chigaga dune complex. For those of you familiar with Jockeys Ridge, this place was that hundreds of times over. We drove around the edge of the main dunes for about an hour before coming to the tented camp where I stayed. There were about 7 tents with beds inside plus an eating room that they called the restaurant and a bath/shower building. All within about 50 yds of each other and surrounded by sand. At about 4pm, I decided to walk up into the dunes to be in position to take some good sunset pics and to test out how easy or hard it would be to walk in the sand. That turned out to be a good idea as the next couple of hours was the best weather of the two days in the desert. I got some good pics of the shadows on the dunes near sunset and headed back as I didn't want to get lost after dark. Sahja had told me that if I didn't show up for dinner he would turn on the car lights so I could find my way. Made it back ok right at dark and right when the wind started blowing.

Dinner was served and turns out I am the only guest, but 10 Moroccans are supposed to come the next day. Who shows up as my waiter but Hassan the guy who picked me up at the Marrakech train station. Turns out his brother owns the camp. Berber soup, followed by spaghetti with some kind of sauce followed by l'orange chicken. It was all very good.

With nothing to do and the wind howling, it was back to my tent. About as cold and windy a night in a tent as possible. Plus when Hassan tucked me in, ie put a few concrete block size rocks on the bottom of the flap that served as a door, he didn't get the job done. So I had to listen to that thing flap all night.
The good news was that I was able to steal the blankets off the other beds. All night I'm wandering is the wind and blowing sand going to cancel the camel ride.

Dawn brought clear skies and more wind. After breakfast, Yahja said that my camel man would show up a little before 10. Low and behold Ali showed up with his three camels and looked like one of the wiseman with them following behind. The lead camel, at 17 yrs of age, had the saddle and the daunting task of hauling my butt around. After a few pleasantries, I got on and was told to hold on tight to what amounted to the handle bars. A camel has a unique way of getting to its feet. Takes about 4 unique movements to get the job done. Kind of like a Charles Barkley golf swing. So off we go with the wind howling and the sand blowing.

Somehow Yahja had gotten the impression that I wanted Ali to take me to where some nomads live to see how they do it. That would have been about 4 hours each way. Well 30 minutes into it my hip joints have been stretched to an extent that they have not seen in years and that I decided might not be in my best interests. So I got down and walked with Ali for a while. What happened next saved the day

Ali points over a small dune where a camel is laying down out of the wind. This camel was smarter than me. We went to look and on the other side of the camel was a baby camel. Ali said it was three days old. I was fascinated. Ali said the baby was cold and the mom was blocking the wind to keep it warm. Camels are born black to absorb more heat from the sun and turn browner over the years. Because two humans and three camels were within a few feet, the mom got a little agitated and stood up. The baby started nursing. Amazing to see. One of the best Nat Geo moments ever. But Ali says we have to go to keep searching for the nomads.

I get back on my camel and we head off. About 30 min later its time for lunch. The boys back at camp have sent their version of a picnic lunch with us. Not sure what it was, but I had brought a Coke and Snickers with me just for this situation. After we ate and rested the camels, Ali was ready to keep going. I asked him where the nomads were and he motioned in about 180 degrees. Basically he had no idea.

So I said lets go back and see if we can find the baby camel and call off the nomad search. This seemed to please Ali as it would shorten his day big time. We found the mom and baby. This time I was on my camel and rememberd that I could take video with my camera. You will really like what I shot. Got Ali to circle the two of them so I got a bunch of angles of them interacting.

Then we headed back. Wanted to take a shower, but Hassan mentioned something about needing 30 min to disinfect the water, so I told him I'd do without. Plus with the sand blowing any clean feeling wasn't going to last. Waited for dinner. With the 10 Moroccans, but they didn't show up. Proves they are smarter than me too. More Berber soup followed by what amounted to beef stew. Very good again. Slept a little better because I got Hassan to bring some additional cinder blocks.

This morning we headed out for a four hour off road drive back to civilization. Going a different direction across a dry lake bed, we came to a fossil area where in five min we picked up a half dozen rocks with trilobites and such in them. Not worth four hours in the saddle, but interesting.

Now I'm writing from my hotel in Tisselday and waiting for dinner. Tomorrow am we have about three hours back to Marrakech. Spend the night there and hope for on time planes starting at 9am Tues. can't imagine much happening worth writing about, so this will be it for this trip.

Til next time, Rock the Kasbah.

Emily's technical drawings

ACC Parent - Child: Jack Winters

Fun time filling in with Jack Winters - we were four over on the front, struggled on the back.

Draa River valley to Zagora

Because you can never talk too much about food, here's last nights meal at Chez Pierre. I think I had managed to avoid zucchini in any form my whole life and now I've had it two nights in a row as soup. Then the little pizza showed up again and I'm thinking there may be no variety in Morocco. But then the waiter puts some duck with wine sauce in front of me. Long trip to get my first taste of duck. It was served with potato and something that looked like green beans. All was good and then what amounted to hot apple pie was served for desert which was off the charts good. Gaining weight.

Chez Pierre is at some elevation and I got my first taste of the desert cooling off at night to the point of being cold. Very much like Vegas in the winter. They have no heating system. During dinner they had a stove with a wood fire going, but me and Spanish couple and French family all had on our coats. My room was very cold, but the bed had the two heaviest blankets on it that I have ever seen. They may have really been rugs. Was not cold all night.

I'm now 2.5 out of three on the showers. This one made up for its lack of water pressure by having terry cloth bedroom slippers. Couldn't resist trying them on. Took a selfie of my feet. Let me know if you want a copy when I get back.

Saw a lady this morning bent over at the back using a small straw broom to sweep the five foot wide space of dirt between her house and the road. Pride comes in many forms.

RV's are on the road here. Yahja says that Europeans bring them over the Mediterranean on a boat or ferry to get out of the winter weather. Have seen dozens each day.

Stopped today at a rose oil cooperative. Never heard of rose oil, but this one area makes a lot of it. Families grow roses and combine the blooms and make oil very much like moonshine is made. They press the pedals to get liquid out. Then steam the liquid and cool it with water running through coils just like a still. The oil is then used to make hand and face cream, soap, etc.

Each day we've been thru a few police check points. There are two officers standing beside the road with a small police car. They are dressed very spiffy with kind of a military police look They put a little sign about 50 yds up the road from them and you must stop and wait for one of them to wave you up. Every time they have just waved us on thru. So when we went thru the first one today, I asked Yahja if they waved us thru because they could see that this was a tourist car and that they'd been told not to hassle tourists. He said that was true but that he had been stopped with people like me before. So the obvious follow up question was do they ever demand bribes to go thru. He laughed and said of course. They will pick out a few vehicles each day and find a few things wrong. Some they will take a bribe to overlook and share the money with their boss. then they will write a ticket for the others. As you would expect, about an hour later we come to one and they stop us. They ask Yahja who I am and he says a tourist. The officer then sticks his hand thru the window to shake my hand and asks where I'm from. I say I'm an American. He smiles big and says welcome to our beautiful country. I say it is very beautiful. He wishes me a grat visit and waves us on. I exhale.

Yahja says there are no wild camels. All camels are owned by someone.

Saw a construction worker stop his work today and unroll his prayer blanket and take off his shoes. Then get on his knees and rock up and down praying for a few minutes. Really hard to get used to seeing in the workplace.

We got to Zagora about 4 pm today and Yahja brought me to Villa Zagora where I'm the only person spending tonight. This is the second night that Yahja has spent at a friends house. Last night he stayed at the hotel, but did not get to eat meals. I had some time to kill before dark so decided to walk back to town to see what I could see. Figured it was safe as I've seen no anti American sentiment. And it was safe, but everywhere I've been there's been hassling by people who want to sell you something or begging by children. Gets old after a while. On the way back I saw a guy driving a motor scooter with a sheep between his knees. He was either dead or a very well behaved pet sheep.

Dinner tonight was amazing since I am the only one that was being served. Two guys run the place. One speaks some English and brought out each course and the other speaks french and cleared my plates. Two women came to work to do the cooking. First was bread and the now ever present zucchini soup. Then I'm told that next will come couscous. Now couscous is a food I've heard of but never figured out what it was. And for some reason it didn't sound appetizing to me. So while I'm waiting, I quickly wikipedia couscous and find out its steam rice with vegetables and some sort of meat. Across the room is the kitchen where the women are singing loudly and having a ball with what sounds like very high pitched Arabic yodeling. The couscous comes and it is a big bowl of steamed rice with potato and opinion on top with a skewer of beef and one of chicken. I'm stuffed as I write this and couldnt finish the fruit salad that came for desert. I told the English speaker to tell the women that this was the best couscous that I had ever had and that I would be honored if they would come out of the kitchen and sing for me. My ears are still ringing.

Tomorrow we head for the real Sahara desert. First we will go by the Erg Chigaga dunes. Then a little further and the road will end. Yahja will then use his local knowledge to drive about 30 miles thru the dunes to the desert camp where I will stay for two nights. We will then drive about 50 miles out the other side and back to the roads on Sunday. So no email for a couple of days.

Will be about 20 miles from Algeria when at the camp. Was hoping to get another stamp for my passport but Yahja says there is no border crossing for hundreds of miles. Just desert, hashish smugglers and illegal aliens from the sub continent trying to get to Europe.

The picture of me riding a camel will go to the highest bidder. Should be special. Rider up

Ouarzazate to the Dades Gorge

Kind of a sort day today, but to close the loop on the big kasbah from yesterday, it is called Ait Ben Haddou and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Was bothered during the night by dogs barking. I think they bark in Arabic. They look like our dogs,but sound different.

Started out at 9am today and went straight to a coop where they say several Berber tribes from Morocco, northern Mali and northern Niger try to sell their carpets, knives, wood products and other stuff they make by hand. It was quite a sales presentation especially since I wasn't going to buy anything. The salesman has on the flowing robe and scarf or towel wrapped around his head. His name is Hassan and he speaks great English and claims to speak six languages. After showing me the wood and silver products, he takes me into the rug room which has hundreds of Berber carpets folded up and stacked around all four walls. He asks me to sit in an ornate throne and calls for his assistant to come in the room. This kid looks like he's 14 and is from the Sudan. They proceed to take carpets off the wall and unfold them and cover the floor with about 15 carpets. With each one he explains which tribe made them and how they were made. So on a loom. Some tied in knots. Some embroidered. Some a combination. He says that it can take a Berber woman 6 months to a year to make one. Kind of like you don't finish a huge jigsaw puzzle at once, he says the women work on the carpets as they have time from their regular day's work. Very entertaining and he's understood that I wasn't a buyer. Would love to know how many pitches he has to make to sell a rug.

Donkeys aren't nearing extinction. They are everywhere. Used for human transport, pulling wooden carts and plowing their fields. Yahja says they sell for about $300.

Then we headed for the town of Skouza to see the Amridil kasbah. Had a guide show me around and explain how people lived in them hundreds of years ago. He spoke great English and showed me many farm and household implements that we're found in the kasbah when the current owner bought it to preserve. The structure was about 5 stories tall and made out of a mud, straw and rock mix. This was before cement. The roofs/ceilings were made of straw and mud. Worthwhile to see.

Moroccan radio music is brutal. At least Yahja keeps the volume low.

Saw my first shepherd with a group of camels today. Looked to be a teenager with about 10 camels. Yahja says that this kid probably was in charge of taking them out of the enclosure at his house each day so they can graze in the desert. Camels are very valuable at $1500 per. They provide milk that is supposed to be healthy and shed their hair once a year and it is collected and sold.

On the drive down the Dades River valley to see the Gorge, I kept seeing clothes hanging in the trees on the river bank. Finally saw some women bending down and washing the clothes in the river water and then they were hung up to dry. They don't have enough water in their homes to was clothes.

Saw my first nomads today as we were driving thru a small village. Yahja says that they come down out of the mountains about once a week to get some supplies. They had mules to haul the stuff back uphill. He says they probably have 200-300 sheep and goats that they tend. They live in tents or caves so they can keep moving as their stock eats the bushes. I asked why they don't live in a house since they know that basic civilization exists and keep their stock at lower elevations and Yahja says it is because the grazing land in the mountains is free and they couldn't afford to graze near town.

We made it to the Dades Gorge mid pm. At its narrowest, its wide enough for the river and a one lane road. Made a video of going thru it that I will try to figure out how to send when I get home.

Sitting down for dinner now at Chez Pierre the guest house I'm staying at tonight. Will report on the meal tomorrow when we get to Zagora.

Houria. That's peace for you non-Arabic speakers.

4 course Morrocan meal and other useless information - Report #2 from Uncle Ricky

Kasbah - A type of medina, Islamic City or Fortress

I think I've come all the way to Morocco to have my first four course meal. Mohammed, my waiter, explained that this would be a planned menu with the only choice being desert. Zucchini soup with chewy bread, then a little round pizza(which Mohammed called a Berber pizza to make a joke), then lemon chicken with potatoes cooked with olives. Desert choices were fruit salad or chocolate mousse. To celebrate that courses one thru three were very good and a pleasant surprise, I opted for the mousse.

• At dinner with me--an English couple, French couple and a couple from Hong Kong. Plus a family of Moroccans
• My first time in a Muslim country and differences are very noticeable. Arabic signage, but almost everything is also written in French as they controlled Morocco before something happened and the King took over
• The Muslim call to prayers happens five times per day with the cleric screaming out of the loud speakers that are mounted on top of every mosque. Sounds just like it does on tv news or movies
• Saw about 100 men lined up kneeling with their shoes off leaning against a wall praying. Something triggered them all getting up and going about their business but I'm no sure what
• The different level of dress among women is startling. Some have just their head covered with a scarf. Some have the scarf come up to cover their mouths. And some have their whole face covered except for their eyes like you've seen with the Taliban forcing that on women. It's a strange thing to see
• Non-Muslims are not allowed to step inside mosques because they are not considered clean. Doubt they getting a lot of conversions
• Berber and Arabic are two different languages
• They serve hot mint tea with everything. One day of that and I'm taking bottled water to all meals
• Royal Air Moroc allows pets to roam the aisles during flights. Had a chihuahua come see me twice during the flight
• I'm 2 for 2 on showers. Tons of water pressure and hot water. Very pleasant surprise
• The only evidence of sports that I've seen are dirt soccer fields. But lots of kids playing
• In the old days if you lived in a kasbah you could go out to work or whatever at sunrise but had to be back by sunset. There was a guard there to make sure of that

Birth order

I love this article shared by Emily titled: The Achiever, the Peacemaker and the Life of the Party: How Birth Order Affects Personality. Especially after watching those early family movies, when mom and I couldn't take our eyes off of Sally's every move! Mom commented: "Dead on! Sometimes the baby of the family has first born qualities if there is more than 4 years between her and the middle child." Seems to be true when you think about how independent Lucy has always been.

 

Ricky's first report from Morroco

Well I made it to Morocco just fine. Flight Sunday night was on time. Met a Moroccan from Alabama at baggage claim that was doing the train from Casablanca to Marrakech like I was. So his Arabic got us thru buying the tickets and getting on the right train. Four hours later, noon local time, Hassan picked me up at Marrakech train station to drive me to the "medina" area of Marrakech. The King of Morocco is in town for some reason so it took a while to get thru all the checkpoints. The medina area is the ancient walled city with no streets that can be accessed by cars. So Hassan got as close as he could and then told some kid with a push cart to take me and my luggage to the "raid" where I would spend the night. I was too tired from the over night trip and train ride to argue, so I just followed the kid. We walked for about ten minutes down narrow alley ways and he stopped at an unmarked door that turned out to be Riad Berbere where I had a reservation. The manager was a nice lady from Belgium, Ingrid. My room was nice and she said it was typical of Moroccan riads.

Because I don't have much time in Marrakech, I asked Ingrid to help me figure out how to walk around the medina and get back to Berbere without getting lost. She laughed and said everyone stays lost in the medina, which turned out to be true. But she walked me about a half mile towards the main square and thru the "souks". Every turn in the passageway she would stop and say things like......see that purple sign? Take a left at it when you are on the way back. So one purple sign and two green ones later, I acted like I grasped things and told her thanks. She left me to fend for myself. If you are interested, Google souks in Marrakech. Damnedest operation ever. Selling everything from trinkets to whole butchered cows that hang unrefrigerated in the stalls.

I had read about the snake charmers in the main square of the medina before coming so I wanted to see that. What I hadn't read about was that the charmer himself could get very angry if you tried to take a picture of him and his cobras without paying him. Well one of these dudes came storming at me when he saw me raising my camera. I quickly put the camera down mostly because he had some smaller snake, not a cobra, draped around his neck. I managed to back away without further incident, but it definitely shook me up. I decided that I had had enough for one day. It only took me about an hour to find my way back to the Berbere and the purple and green signs where the key just as Ingrid had said

Slept 10 hours. Woke up and had a decent breakfast of some strange fruit and a coissant of sorts. Then my driver for the week called and told Ingrid where he was parked. Ingrid called a kid with a cart and away we went to find Yahja, the driver. Definitely a little different than checking in and out of a Hampton Inn. My transportation is a brand new Toyota Land Cruiser with huge tires on it for when we get to the Sahara later this week and the roads end. It took us about 6.5 hours today to drive from Marrakech over the High Atlas mountains to Ouarzazate. The terrain is very much like the desert and mountains in Vegas or Phoenix. There was some snow at the pass when got to the top of the mountain, about 6000 ft of elevation. Stopped at the most famous "kasbah" in Morocco, but I can't remember the name. Several movies have been filmed there including the made for tv, The Bible. This place is a historic tourist destination, but some families still live inside. The whole thing is about the size of an NFL stadium. It's about 300 years old they think. The Chapel Hill historic types should move here

Yahja just dropped me off at my hotel for the night, Dar Chamaa. Seems nice and has wifi that even I could figure out. Wonderful swimming pool out back. Dinner is served in about an hour and is included in the price. So they decide what is served. My digestive system is excited. More to come when I can and have wifi.

Funny Travis Mathews video - Andres

Happy Birthday BeBe!

Winter Schedule for the Girls

Winter / Spring Schedules (All times Central)

Sally @ UGA

Tuesday/Thursday
African Studies: 7:00-8:15
Professional Practices: 8:30-9:45
Health and Wellness: 10:00-11:15
Technology in the Workplace: 11:30-12:45
Senior Studio: 1:00-3:45

Emily @ SCAD

Monday/Wednesday
Fashion Sketching: 7:00-9:30
Golf Practice: 10:00-12:30

Tuesday/Thursday
Golf Practice: 7:00-9:30
Intro to Textiles: 2:00-4:30

Friday
Coach Carter: 6:30

Lucy @ Hill Country

Monday - Friday (School): 9:00 - 4:00

Monday (Company): 6:00-8:45
Tuesday (Contemporary): 7:00-8:30
Wednesday (Ballet, Lyrical, Dancers Strength, Tap): 4:30-9:00
Thursday (Acro, Jumps/Turns, Jazz, Company): 5:00-8:30
Saturday (Ballet): 10:00-2:15

Women Power Wednesday

Go Girls! Love how the lamp snuck into this photo from our hotel room at AT&T Conference Center. Brighten someone's day, today!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Good times out on the town!

Andres and Kristin treated us to a fabulous dinner and a tour of Austin Christmas lights!

Traveling in style!