Jodi and I went to the fabric store where the bear’s fur came from and bought enough to do two more bears. It’s now on its way to Iceland via U.S. Post. Initially they said that shipping would cost $238.50 (at the cheap end. The high end was $700) because the fur was too big to fit into one of the US Post approved boxes and would have to go via FedEx. At that price I was just going to buy a suitcase and carry it with me. We managed to cram it in with a bit of effort. The post costs only $50. Crazy, eh? It’ll take 6-8 weeks to get to Iceland, but I’ll be out of the country longer than that, so I think it’ll be fine.

Afterwards we went to have Thai food. Mmmm. Spicy. I’ve missed spicy food. And Thai Iced Tea. Happy camper, me.

I’ve made it to Brooklyn where I’m staying with Jodi and Sam. Bizarrely, Stefan was on the flight with me from Iceland but we didn’t realize it until baggage claim. Jodi arranged dinner with Sam Jonathan, Emily and Chris at Gobo. Some very good food and not over-salted, which was such a relief.

I go to Portland tomorrow.

I spotted this review of Apex Digest #6 while waiting for my airplane. Yay!

Another strong piece is Cerbo en Vitra ujo, the story of Grete and her attempt to find her lost boyfriend, Kaj, whom she fears is lost to the body harvesters. Mary Robinette Kowal’s story is based on skilful world creation, with a complex social hierarchy that is seamlessly woven together to underpin this tale. The sinister harvesters take desirable body parts from the young and healthy, grafting them onto those who can afford to replenish or augment their fading bodies. The donors, however, are not necessarily willing participants in the process. We follow the young Grete’s amateur detective work, sharing in her growing fear at what may become of Kaj, towards an ending where horror meets sci-fi. Terrific.

Sprint requires a two-year service contract to turn my phone on for the two months I’ll be home. No. No, thank you. I’m looking for a new service.

Who do you use? Do you like your cell service or do you hate it?

Jæja, I’m sitting in the airport waiting for my flight to leave to the U.S. People keep asking me if I’m excited to be going home and I keep saying, “No.” Don’t get me wrong. There are people that I’m very much looking forward to seeing and things that I’ve missed about Portland, but sometime in the past year I had a shift in where I think “home” is. I also miss Rob already. The first three years of our marriage we were constantly apart because of work, but for the last two years we’ve been together. It’ll be a month and a half before I see him again. Am I excited to be going? No. I’ll miss my husband.

Well, mostly finished. I’m dropping him off at the seamstress’s tomorrow. She’ll make the doctor’s jacket for him as well as doing some finish work that I am much happier to delegate. Meanwhile, I will be getting on a plane and flying back to the States.

I stopped by Gummi Þor’s to show him the bear and he seemed very pleased. His house is still in full remodeling mode, so I think at least part of his happiness was just giddiness from lack of sleep. I then went to show Ingólfur the bear and talk about the things that remain to be finished.

On the body my seamstress will:

1. Add fur to arms - (we needed to wait til jacket is finished to see how much arm is exposed.)
2. Make the Doctor’s jacket
3. Position velcro for holding doctor’s coat in place.
4. Add any extra fur to cover exposed areas or to provide a softer feel to the bear.

We had planned on having two sets of hands and feet so that one set could go to the dry cleaner’s without taking the bear out of commission, but have run out of the material. I’m going to try to order some more, hopefully enough to make an entire second bear.

I’m also going to make a new foam insert for the hands while I’m in the states. I’m not happy with the foam I had here, but the ones I’ve made will work just fine for the bear’s initial outings.

I’m packed, now I just need to get the bear fuzz out of my nose and go to sleep.

One of my co-workers was in today with his kid. She’s just started walking and is pre-verbal…not sure how old that makes her. Anyway, I fast-forwarded the latest video to the point where the bear dances. She sat there and made us play that section over and over by pointing at the screen and grunting until we did.

And with only the head, inactive on a pedestal, she just wanted to sit and pet it.

I’m thinking that’s a sign of success.

As noted last week, I’m not going to post this week. Now, I asked you to record a story yourself. If you did and would like comments on it, paste a link into the comments of this post.

Meanwhile, I’d like to offer you The Time Traveler Show #9 Halloween Special, which has an interview with Sam A. Mowry, director of the Willamette Radio Workshop. Sam is an immensely talented voice actor and talks about what that’s like. He also reads Jack Vance’s When the Five Moons Rise. Not only is this a chilling story, it’s also a fine example of character differentiation, cross-gender voicing and an emotional invested narrator. Go listen and tell me what you think.

I’m posting while I try to gather my wits. I’d opened the mouth as I planned to insert the scrim. While I had the head open, I peeled back the black fabric on the roof of his mouth to drillout some more holes for the actor to breath more easily. On the second hole, as I was pulling the drill out, it caught in the bear’s fur, spinning it around. The bear clonked me in the head; the drill wrenched out of my hand and the bear head fell to the floor. This is what I saw when I picked it up.

I’m sure it’s all repairable, I’m just, well, stunned. I’m also thankful that I’m not getting on a plane this afternoon as originally planned.

Edited to add: It wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked. It only took about forty-five minutes to fix. Whew.

I saw this on Patrick Swenson’s blog. He’s a mere 14% evil.

You Are 22% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well. In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

I met with the seamstress today and she’s confident that making the jacket will be easy. We talked about the need for the pockets to be gigantic to allow the bear’s paws inside. I’ll drop the bear’s body off with her on Saturday so she can make the pattern for the jacket.

Here’s a video of the process of finishing the head and a movement test. As you’ll be able to see, there’s still some finish work that needs doing, but the bear is very close to being finished.

I’m very pleased with the movement of the bear. What doesn’t make me happy is the heat inside the head. Although I put in a lot of ventilation, it’s still very stuffy. I’m going to open up the mouth tomorrow and replace the sheer cloth I have with scrim. Hopefully this will get more air into the performer.

My biggest surprise, and my largest concern now, is that the mouth doesn’t work when I speak Icelandic. The prevalence of þ and ð (both make a “th” sound) cause interesting lipsync problems because the sound of both letters is produced without moving the jaw. Indeed, it’s almost impossible to move the jaw and make either sound. When I try to say Þú (the word for “you,” pronounced “thoo”) the mouth only moves if I really force it, and then the vowel sound changes because it’s not meant to be said with an open mouth. I’ll put a native Icelandic speaker in there tomorrow to see if they have better success. I wish this had occurred to me as a potential problem. I’ve been testing the movement of the jaw with, well, English. Silly me, it’s an Icelandic bear.

I just received my schedule for Orycon. Holy cow. At least I won’t have to make decisions about which panels to attend.

We just learned that Lazytown has been nominated for a BAFTA (British Academy Children’s Film and Television Award)

The winners will be announced at the ceremony on Sunday 26 November 2006 at the London Hilton.

INTERNATIONAL

FAIRLY ODD PARENTS - Butch Hartman, Gary Conrad (Frederator Studios/Nickelodeon UK)

HARRY AND HIS BUCKET FULL OF DINOSAURS - Kristine Klohk/Helen Cohen/Graham Ralph (Collingwood O’Hare Entertainment/Silver Fox Films Ltd/CCI Entertainment/Five)

LAZY TOWN - Magnus Sheving, Jonathan Judge (Lazy Town Productions/Nick Jr)

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS - Paul Tibbitt, Vincent Walls, Alan Smart (United Plankton Pictures Inc/Nickelodeon UK)

The brand-new gluegun just died.

1. I went to work and worked on the bear.
2. From 10:30-12:00, I went to my last Icelandic class. I have a certificate now to prove that I’ve taken the course, because you can’t tell by talking to me.
3. Went back to work.
4. Bought new glue gun and finished skinning the head–er, that means that I finished putting the fur on the head. Sometimes I can recognize the odd phrasing.
5. Inhaled a lot of fur.
6. Talked with seamstress about the bear’s jacket. She’s coming tomorrow to look at it.
7. Tried to go to a friend’s dress rehearsal, but didn’t get away from the bear in time.
8. Home now.
9. Bed, next.