Jace Daniel: Storyteller, Author, Media Designer

Binary Floor

I’ve finally gotten around to take some steps to fix my floor after the remodel. The other night my bro Hector came over to ponder the situation, do some math, and go over some options. Hector’s put hardwood floor down before, and has all the tools.

The immediate thought was to patch the floor to match the existing stuff. This is an obvious challenge, as the existing floor is 1945 red oak that was laid down when the house was originally built. So the differences in wood vintages combined with inevitable not-quite-close-enough stain matching attempts cast a quiet shadow over the success of the undertaking. On top of all that, there’s already some tricky geometry going: the wood is 2.25″ strips that are .75″ thick, but now that the wall’s gone, the rut isn’t divisible by 2.25. The builders did some tricks by ripping an additional 2.75″ rib, which they put in the hallway to at the point it met the living room.

So we hung out with a tape measure and discussed things. The verdict was for me to take the math and go hunt down 163 linear feet of 2.25″ red oak, along with another 18 linear feet of 3″ plank that we’d rip to 2.75″. I took my numbers, got some contacts through buddies in town, and hit the yellow pages. I quickly found that the stuff people are selling today in 2008 is all up to trend, consisting mostly of luxury pre-finished hardwoods in enough types and finishes to drive a nun to drink. Whatever I needed was not gonna be found in any retailer’s stock, since it’s only available through distributors. I was either gonna have to pay a retailer to find what I need, or continue an open-ended search that would probably end up involving warehouses in Rancho Cucamonga. Finding the proper unfinished wood was gonna be a chore, and take up quite a bit of time and energy.

In my frustration, I revisited the surface of an idea that started last year. I’d always thought it’d be cool to do a piece of art on the floor, but never really thought it through to any kind of conclusion. But now, with the frustration associated with hunting material, I started looking at the specifics. With math in hand, I figured, hey, howzabout I pull up strips of the existing floor and create a huge rectangle the length of the room, right under the beam, to do a design with in either tile or hardwood parquet. The oak strips immediately inside the door are rotted out anyway, requiring replacement, so I figured to just let the natural lines reveal themselves to me. It’s how I approached the soffit.

With that, I stared at the floor and its measurements. The area I’d pull up would be twenty of the 2.25″ strips, times the 23.5 foot length of the room. That leaves me with a rectangle roughly 23.5′ by about 4′. I started getting into art mode, which is where I feel comfortable. My zone. I don’t typically consider myself a very handy guy, but I’ve found that if you can take a home improvement gig and twist it into an art project, I’M THE DUDE YOU’RE LOOKING FOR.

And then, something divine happened. I pull up craigslist, do a quick search on parquet hardwood floor, and find an ad. Just a single, lonely ad. Somebody up in West Hills was selling over 250 vintage hardwood tiles from the fifties, by Bruce USA. The tiles were nine inches square, each consisting of four 2.25″ strips. Just like my floor. Plus, the stuff was .75″ thick, which is exactly what I need.

I call the lady, introduce myself, and she’s supercool. Tells me she and her hub are leaving tomorrow to travel for a year. I tell her I’m an artist, mentioning my intentions, and she’s overjoyed. “Get up here, I have tons of stuff for you,” she said. “I want them to have a good home.”

I make the hour-long trek after traffic, and roll up to her place at a little after 9PM. Here’s where the long story starts getting shorter: I SCORED. Not only tons of the exact hardwood I need, but also some other items, including some wall panel tiles and a groovy Infinity Mirror that I just saw somewhere for $800.

But that’s just the beginning. I was now able to take my math and convert it to 9″ units. Twenty of the 2.25″ strips equals 45″, and five of the 9″ tiles also equals 45″. PERFECT.

So my rectangle is to be five tiles by 32 tiles. This screams design possibilities, since 32 is a binary number. If you count in binary from 0 to 31, it’s exactly 32 tiles.

So to wrap up this unfathomably long-winded blog entry about what I did last night and what I plan to start this weekend, I am gonna take the tiles, sand ’em down, stain half of them ebony, and keep the others natural. Taking the Universe’s cue of the significance of 32, here’s where we’re going. The front door will open up at the bottom left of this design; you’ll essentially be stepping onto 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 as you step into the house:

binary floor

Here’s what the wood looked like when it was laid down and stained:

parquet flooring

And finally, my buddy Alisa after directing me for an hour and a half like a well-intending drill sergeant as I loaded my truck to the gills:

alisafunbox@aol.com

To be continued…

Grey matters

“You must have an idea of what you are going to do. But it should be a vague idea.”
–Pablo Picasso

Dog Leg Left

dog leg left sunset

Still straight ahead, only a little off to the side.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

When to flee? Who’s the fairest? Which tries fulfill? Whiskers too fuzzy? Waikiki this fall? Why take flight? Wrong the flawless. Waist to face. Will to fling. Wrists to feet. While they fry. Where’s the falafel? Water through faucet. Wrap the fun. Why the fear?

Saturday Midnight Munchies

naylor angelique hector

A genuine F-15 blueprint from Fort MacArthur

Here’s a little golden nugget of United States military history. A couple years ago we were taking a rare underground tour of the batteries at Fort MacArthur near the Port of Los Angeles. One of said batteries, Battery 241, resides beneath what is now the Korean Bell of Friendship. The battery is completely dark, coated with six decades of dust, dead cat bones, and mechanical debris, requiring flashlights and heavy shoes. We were lucky to find this relic face down in a forgotten dusty corner. A print-out of an F-15 fighter jet.

Way cool.

Yin and Yang

“In the act of creation, a man brings together two facets of reality and, by discovering a likeness between them, makes them one.”
–Jacob Bronowski

At First Sight

At First Sight
by Jace Daniel (b. 1969)

It was a Saturday when I first saw her. Early spring. It had been a long winter, and throwing myself into a committed relationship was the last thing I’d intended to do. But on that fateful day, when I least expected it, we crossed paths, locked eyes, and the magic began.

I would soon learn that she was rebounding, coming out of an abusive relationship, with a detailed past I figured would be better left undisclosed to me. What did it matter, anyway? We all have our pasts, and for many of us, the past can be like a square peg to the future’s round hole. New beginnings happen, and they begin no earlier than now.

Like most new relationships, ours was naturally awkward at first. I had become so accustomed to my privacy and personal freedom that I was expecting to find her presence intrusive to my comfortable norm. But I soon recognized a void in my life, a void that she filled. A previously unrealized void that she revealed simply by being in the same room. A void I would never wish to have in my life again if I could help it.

It wasn’t long, perhaps immediately, that we became the proverbial two peas in a pod. A likely duo. And in all honesty, she’s proven to be the better half. Despite all my quirks and faults, the unconditional acceptance she brought to our relationship is something I’ll never consider myself worthy of. She lets me do whatever I want, whenever I want, and never complains. The element of Self seems to be completely absent from her sense of Love, and, unless she’s hiding her feelings, nothing makes her happier than my happiness.

And to top it all off, she actually thinks I’m a good cook.

She’s here in the room now, patiently waiting for me to finish this silly exercise I do so often at my computer, tapping plastic keys with my fingers for no apparent reason. She’s on the floor, her head resting on the top of my bare feet, her eyes ready to make contact with mine on those occasional moments when I bother to look down. In not so many words, she’s telling me, as she always does, “Ready when you are.”

So now, as I finally bring this story to a close, I am indeed ready. Where did I put that leash?

21 Jam

21 Jam
by Jace Daniel (b. 1969)

Day at a time, peas in a pod, is a crowd, on the floor, high, word memoirs, seas, is enough, lives, a perfect, the hour, noon, unlucky, fortnight, minutes of fame, sweet, only, legal, product, questions, Blackjack.

SpeedTrap Exchange

The SpeedTrap Exchange is a site where visitors can post what they believe are speedtraps. The National Motorists Association cannot attest to the validity of these listings. They are individual postings from private individuals who believe a speed trap is in effect in these locations.

Great. But, two things: a) I wish I knew about this earlier, and b) I wish I had time to memorize this stuff. The next logical step would be to program all these hotspots into your car’s GPS.

Homegrown Happy Hour

kona vivor vive white point