Earlier this summer I made a pilgrimage to the family home, where (as is my custom) I went through quite a few cartons of absolutely essential items I stored for the brief time I would be spending overseas. As the "brief time" is now approaching seven years, I have started re-evaluating the notion of "absolutely essential", discarding or donating many items once considered "absolutely essential" but which have now slipped to just "essential". Such as badly dubbed cassette copies of albums my brother owns (or once owned, perhaps copies themselves), VHS recordings of matches from World Cup 1994 (and way more pro wrestling shows than you might think), kitchen implements that were originally obtained from garage sales (or more likely, salvaged from streetside on "moving day" [the most important day of the year for the discerning scavenger who happens to live in the vicinity of a large university]), assorted food products slightly past their best-by date (and which have somehow escaped the attention of any vermin in the vicinity of Dunce Parents' Manor), ten-year-old batteries that still might have a bit of zap left in them, ... well, you get the idea. In any event, I plowed through quite a few cartons of such treasures, but also managed to find real treasures in their midst. This time there was one truly precious find which I brought back with me and triumphantly presented to Mrs. Dunce....

It's a music video (VHS format) dating back to my high school days. During which, I must admit, I loved me that heavy metal music (And here comes quite a digression indeed). I sneered at anyone who played a "real" guitar (i.e., acoustic guitar), believing that the only true music came from electric guitars (ideally two or more at a time), played by proper metal musicians (in contrast to the pretty boys who were all about fashion and stuff, and didn't play, you know, REAL metal [erm, you could be all about fashion and stuff as long as your metal was real enough, such as Twisted Sister, Stryper {ummmmmm, yeah, I know}, and the like {Really I'm just trying to claim I never liked Giuffria, Motley Crue or Poison}]). Now I had to be careful about my selection of proper heavy metal music, as metal too heavy ran the risk of parental involvement (see for example the unfortunate birthday present from a much-beloved aunt, who made the mistake of giving a gift certificate. Which I quickly spent on Defenders of the Faith by Judas Priest. Which in turn was inspected and parentally confiscated for some unknown reason [and, in turn, un-confiscated at a later date, through a highly risky stealth mission]). But the occasional copy of magazines like Creem and Hit Parader did appear in our house, and it was from these that I learned about which bands were REAL metal and which bands were total posers or worse*. In any event, I brought back a relic of these days and proudly presented it to Mrs. Dunce....

The music video is Hear 'n Aid: The Sessions:

Which I believe I purchased for the full retail price (perhaps $19.99) despite its feeble length of only 30 minutes. Recorded in 1985, it's the Heavy Metal world's answer to "We Are the World" and "Do They Know It's Christmas?", a single entitled "Stars" featuring many of the day's hottest metal musicians (and some less hot... the guys from Rough Cutt and Vanilla Fudge) (and some less metal... Y&T? Journey? Night Ranger? although I guess they ROCKED!! on the song) (and some less real... Derek Smalls & David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap), to raise money for those poor starving African children (a complete list of the participants appears on the Wikipedia page [where else?!]). The song begins like a ballad, with teensy-weensy Ronnie James Dio crooning the lyrics "Who cries for the children? I do......" before launching into the full metal power of who-knows-how-many metal guitars crunching away at your heartstrings (and for the record, I do not believe Mr. Dio actually cries for the children). How can I continue to wax lyrical about it, when the music video itself is a mere click away at Youtube. If you haven't seen it, you have no excuse. Don't worry, I'll wait....

HEAR 'N AID: STARS

If you want to analyze the lyrics in more depth (or perhaps have them tattooed on your person) they can be found here (along with a clear indication of exactly who sings what, something that is quite important since they almost all sound the same). It's also rather impressive to see how some of the best guitar solos (by this I mean the ones I thought were the best back in the day) actually appear to be unrelated to the song, but could actually be included in just about any heavy metal song without sounding any worse. The video tape includes not only the song itself, but builds up to it with a "making of" video. Yes, it does look very much like a parody (particularly given the presence of two gentlemen from Spinal Tap) but it's deadly serious. And now it's part of our household!

I am actually kicking myself now for discarding its original sleeve; used copies (ex-rental!) sell for $50 (link if you'd like to buy one).


* My favorite letter-to-the-editor of all time appeared on the pages of one of these magazines. It was quite customary for young fans to write in and explain which bands they liked (and why), and more importantly, which bands they didn't like (and why). Usually in the most anoraky style possible (yes, they could have been me). But the best of all was a dramatic put-down of Kevin DuBrow (frontman of much-regarded Slade rip-off band Quiet Riot) who (it was alleged) "couldn't kick ass if he wore butt-seeking boots" (a passage which sadly receives zero hits on Google [until now]).

Last weekend was London Open House, a once-a-year event where members of the public can get inside buildings that are not ordinarily open (or see parts of buildings that are not ordinarily accessible, etc.). For free, I should mention. This year we decided to trek to the extreme northwestern part of London, to the town of Pinner (birthplace of Sir Elton John, onetime home of Simon LeBon and setting of the BBC sitcom One Foot in the Grave. But we were not there for any of that. Instead we were there to see some old houses.

Our first stop was Sweetmans Hall, a 16th century timber-framed house. The present owners have only lived there for a couple of years, and have been spending most of that time restoring it (using more traditional materials than previous "restoration" which they have had to undo before their own restoration, in order to prevent disaster). We thought it would be a very lovely place to live, if only we had a couple million to spare. The view from the rear gives a good indication of its structure (see the nice exposed beams, including the brand-new beam on the rectangular extension on the right side of the picture)

And some very nice angles are quite visible in the closer view (it's amazing this building has stood for around 500 years)



Our next stop was Headstone Manor, "former home of the Archbishops of Canterbury and Middlesex's oldest surviving timber-framed building", parts of which date from 1310. It's surrounded by a moat (for purposes of ostentation rather than defense), and like many old, old buildings has been built onto in various ways over the years. Some parts were destroyed by fire hundreds of years ago, and in fact the building is currently still undergoing major restoration work (including massive metal supports from which the structure of the building now hangs). There's still quite a bit to go (some of the interiors have still been untouched from the building's recent previous life as council housing). Here's a view from the rear (the front is less interesting... it's all covered in brick, which apparently disguised the building's age for many years)



And then it was back into Pinner, this time to see the East End Farm Cottage (which has its own website, here, with much more information). It was built in the 14th/15th century, and the present owners have a list of every owner since 1429 (PDF link). As you might expect it's a lovely little cottage, with crooked angles everywhere you look.


(I don't mean to call Mrs. Dunce a crooked angle!)









But perhaps the highlight of the day was the interior which contained a large wall painting (~turn of the 16th century), featuring a hunting scene with a dog in action and the lower part of a stag, complete with dripping blood. Needless to say Mrs. Dunce was incredibly excited about this very unusual medieval remnant.



We were extremely pleased to have a chance to see these buildings, especially Sweetmans Hall and East End Cottage which are privately owned, not museums. Thanks to the owners of these houses who were willing to open them up to the public (and act as tour guides too).

Well, after a long blog-free interval I finally have a few minutes to spare here and there, so it's time to see about getting back on the blog-entry train. Because there are way too many blogs that just petered out but still remain visible evidence of the short attention spans of their writers. Not this one. Hang on a second, I see something sparkly.

Quite a while ago I posted some photos of my London cycle commute (link). You might get a different perspective on cycling in London from the video linked below. Please note, the movie file is 70mb, and it's accompanied by a heavy metal soundtrack. So turn down the volume if you don't want to ROCK!!!

London Calling (From digave.com, Lucas Brunelle Productions).

My own commute is somewhat less aggressive, and may have a different soundtrack. It also doesn't involve any parking garages.

I consider myself to have quite a decent array of Web searching skills. I'm quite up to speed on the various options Google provides, and tend to use them in complex combinations in order to try and get useful information with a minimum of chaff. I also have a tendency to do searches in parallel, popping up multiple tabs/windows at the same time to allow quicker cycling through the possibilities (something that infuriates Mrs. Dunce to no end when she's shoulder-surfing). Anyway, I tend to be pretty successful at finding what I'm looking for.

Or at least, when it comes to text. Or information that can be found using text, such as identifying a song from a snippet of lyrics (even when they're almost entirely in an unknown language, like this catchy number (link to lyrics). But when it comes to non-text searches, let me just say "Ouch".

For example, Mrs. Dunce is a big fan of a certain plant that grows well near us. It's a flowering tree with some lovely bluish-purple flowers. As pictured here (with Mrs. Dunce wondering about its name).


I've certainly tried text-based searching to find this sort of thing (text-based search tricks work just fine in Google Images, as long as you know the right sort of terminology), but it just isn't happening. Searching for things like "purplish-blue flowers" gets you similar plants but they just don't look quite right. And I get really tired of lavender, lavender, lavender, lilac, lilac, lilac which don't look right either. I've managed to find a nice online flower identifier but its questions assume a level of knowledge/attention well beyond my own (in addition to referring only to northeastern and north central US and adjoining bits of Canada). And there's no way I'm going to admit my ignorance by going into a flower shop and asking questions that reveal my ignorance, or posting the picture on a plant identification forum where no doubt it would be instantly identified.

Of course, by creating this post, I'm revealing my ignorance after all. But it's related to the more general question of how one might go about using text-based search techniques to find out information about an image you are having trouble identifying. This does not just apply to plants or flowers. Say for instance you see an image like this one. The man in the blue shirt is very famous, but who is he? You might get some hints from the name of the website, and the people standing next to him, but then what? Or maybe you see this picture and want to figure out what kind of bus it is (there is a very precise answer to this one which can be found using a different set of simple search tricks).

Anyway, it would probably be much easier to ask someone. But that would take the challenge out of it.

Impossible?! Never. But sadly, this time it's true.

Some time ago, I decided to try and find a legal cycling route between home and work which allowed me to avoid every single traffic light on my way. The original post where I set out the challenge is here and here is a follow-up post where I successfully reduced the total to five (or six, but then it hardly matters if it's not zero).

In the past few days I've been working tirelessly to solve one particular vexing problem: the iron curtain around my workplace. You might get an idea of the situation by peering at this Google Map. My workplace lies in the center of the map, and home is north by northeast. The blue place markers indicate intersections that are controlled by traffic signals.

Unfortunately, a careful survey of all the possible (legal) crossings seems to show that my challenge is impossible. It appears that a rectangle bounded by the A501, A420, A401, and A400 is a nearly inescapable trap, at least for any cyclist hoping to avoid all traffic signals and still ride legally (one apparent possibility is actually pedestrian-only). Today I tested my last hope, a circuitous route heading southwest (indicated by the blue line in the above-linked Google Map). I did manage to get across the A400, but only just. It takes me to the massively nasty traffic system around New Oxford Street, High Holborn and so on, the last place a traffic signal avoider wants to be.

So this is a challenge that must remain unsolved, at least until some of the traffic signals are removed.

A gazillion days ago I mentioned the Glasgow Necropolis, and that I'd write about it soon. I just have to stop making statements like that. Although I've been busy, I could have dashed off an entry or two about something other than necropolises (or necropoleis for those people afraid of sullying the language by using English regular plurals on Wörter borrowed from other Sprachen). Anyway, today I bring you a few words (and fewer pictures) about the Glasgow Necropolis.

The term "necropolis" really just means "cemetery" (preferably large, fancy and ancient). The Victorian craze for impressive burial monuments led to an enthusiastic adoption of the concept, and wealthy Glasgow was no exception. In 1831, land near Glasgow cathedral was converted into a cemetery, modeled upon Père Lachaise in Paris. Some 50,000 are now buried there; I believe 100% of them are dead. At the top of the hill stands a monument to John Knox, hero of the Reformation in Scotland. Built 253 years after his death, it features a brief summary of his anti-Popery heroism. Broken floodlights around the monument are a not-so-subtle reminder that not all residents of Glasgow are pleased with this substantial monument to anti-Popery.

On our first day in Glasgow, we were too late to visit the Necropolis; large iron gates prevented us from crossing the Bridge of Sighs to the Necropolis itself. But we were very eager to get there... here's a picture I already posted, featuring Mrs. Dunce's enthusiasm for the Necropolis. The Knox monument is at the top of the photo.


But once Sunday morning came, we had time to visit the Necropolis. We had it mostly to ourselves, at least if you only consider the living. On our rambling way up the hill, the less serious of our group felt compelled to pose before a particularly impressive monument:

There was quite a view from the very top:

 

As we were looking around the Knox monument, we were further reminded of Glasgow's sectarian heritage: the sounds of a drum and fife band began playing somewhere off in the distance, probably warming up for the Rangers match later that day. No, we weren't planning to be anywhere near the Rangers match, but were instead using our few remaining hours to see the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (I'll try and convinve Mrs. Dunce into writing a guest post on that topic. I think she probably has more to say than I do).

I took a bunch of pictures at the Necropolis too (all the above are from Mrs. Dunce) but have somehow misplaced them. Par for the course, really. Fortunately others have succeeded where I have failed; for example, there are some very nice black&white photos here. And a very good (brief) article by Glasgow Necropolis expert Ronnie Scott here. Or there's always his book. Or even his very recently unveiled theory that the Necropolis itself is a giant Masonic emblem, symbols within symbols within symbols (article link)

Another substantial delay, sorry about that! Work has been frantic lately: I've been centrally involved in setting up all sorts of new experiments with various different people. I'm feeling quite productive, but little time is left for frippery. Especially since I've also been fighting off a nasty cold/flu sort of thing (my immune system should really get in gear). Anyway.... back to Glasgow.

We took a morning train from London, somewhat loaded down with a bunch of posters/flyers/information sheets for my work presentation. The trip to Glasgow was pretty quick, less than 5 hours up the West Coast Main Line on a Pendolino train. Once we ditched the luggage, we scrambled up the hill for some quick touristic activities before closing time. First stop was Provand's Lordship, Glasgow's only surviving medieval house. But just across the street from Provand's Lordship stands Glasgow Cathedral, so we had to make a quick visit there as well. And of course its surrounding churchyard. We Dunces always seem to find ourselves wandering around churchyards, graveyards, cemeteries, and this was no exception. The graves surrounding the cathedral were quite substantial, and many were surrounded by iron cages (perhaps this was to protect the recently dead from the bodysnatching craze?). One of these cages also contained a Dunce.





But wait, there was more. Up on the hill above the cathedral was a the Glasgow Necropolis! Mrs. Dunce was almost uncontrollable with excitement:


But we were too late to explore the Necropolis (without scaling fences, tunneling or some other similar non-standard means of entrance, so we would have to wait. We took a detour back to the hotel (where I met with my Deaf colleague for a briefing about the next day's event), then made a beeline for the pub. The Babbity Bowster is quite well-regarded (and was quite near the hotel), so we made it our first stop. It's quite small, with fairly minimal decor & lots of hard surfaces which made it noisier than we might have liked. But we managed to get a small table which was no mean feat on a Friday night. Decent ale, and quite good pub food (including vegetarian haggis, neeps and tatties). After that it was a very short wander to another pub, the Blackfriars. This was a much larger place, with quite a mix of people and a larger range of beers (many of which we'd never heard of). There's a smoking ban in Scotland (unlike England, at least for the moment), so the pubs weren't smoky either. Everything was quite pleasant; we didn't see even a hint of trouble, much less the famed Glasgow kiss.

The next day our paths diverged: I spent the day working, and Mrs Dunce hit the museums. Our next joint venture was navigating the complicated and overcrowded Glasgow subway system.


St. Dunce: Patron Saint of the Glasgow Underground:


After a quick drink in a nice enough campus pub, we made our way to dinner. Much to Mrs Dunce's delight we were headed to the Ubiquitous Chip, a very highly-regarded restaurant. Or more accurately, restaurant-bar complex, as it's subdivided into various separate entities, including the Restaurant, the Upstairs, Big Pub, Wee Pub, and Corner Bar. We ate at the upstairs part, which had a sort of fancy gastropub menu, not as expensive (or as unusual) as the restaurant proper. Again vegetarian haggis made an appearance, but the highlight of the meal was probably Mrs. Dunce's smoked haddock salad.

After dinner it was back to the Blackfriar again (told you we liked it). This time we tried some of the unusual bottled beers. Most of them were from the historic ale range by Heather Ale and contained unusual (but historically accurate) ingredients like gooseberry, pine, seaweed, or heather (not all in the same product, thank goodness). We had a good window seat, so we were able to see the Saturday night street traffic. Loads and loads of people out on the town, but we saw nothing even remotely resembling carnage.

The next morning we headed over to the Necropolis, which probably deserves its own entry.

Mrs. Dunce and I spent the past weekend in Glasgow, my first trip to Scotland. I was representing my workplace at a large Deaf event, trying to spread the word about the research we are doing, and to possibly recruit some Scottish BSL signers to participate in some of our studies. It was also a really great opportunity to practice my signing.

But I discovered something rather unfortunate when I started introducing myself to people. In BSL, as in many other sign languages, people often have "sign names", sort of like a signed nickname used in place of fingerspelling someone's actual name. My own sign name was given to me when I first met with a group of deaf researchers, after suffering an unfortunate broken-glasses incident which left me peering through the one remaining lens. It looks exactly like this: LINK.¹

In the southeast (including London), this sign also means "to peep" (as in peeping through a keyhole, and maybe something like a peeping Tom). Perhaps with a vaguely naughty connotation, but nothing too extreme (unless everyone has been having a laugh at my expense....). In Scotland, however, this sign means "pervert", and not a nice, amusing sort of pervert either. When I introduced myself to a Scottish signer for the first time, I got a classic double-take. He asked me if that was really my sign name. When I told him that indeed it was, he proceeded to explain that I should really think about changing my name (maybe something more like "tea", a similarly shaped sign, but at the corner of the mouth. Or maybe something more like "monocle", which is in front of the eye, but with a more open hand). The Deaf equivalent of "Bill, or George, or anything but Sue", I suppose.

Other than the embarrassment of introducing myself "Hi, my name is Pervert", things seemed to go quite well. I chatted to lots of different people about our research and the different things people here are working on, maybe 3/4 of the time in sign language, and only 1/4 of the time in English. I'd rehearsed quite a bit of my patter about the research, but was most worried about not being able to understand people (especially unfamiliar people, in an unfamiliar setting). But as my co-workers predicted, it was no trouble at all.

Next time I'll write about Glasgow itself; we thoroughly enjoyed our long weekend there.


¹A curious coincidence: this same handshape positioned on the forehead means "know-nothing" or "dunce". But I got this sign name before I chose the name of "Dunce" (that only happened when I started up this blog, and found myself faced with the difficult challenge of coming up with a title which, I felt, had to fulfill certain characteristics).

This week is another hectic one at work, as we're being moved into a new lab/office zone on Friday. So we've been scrambling around packing and labeling years' worth of important items. And noticing that the important:junk ratio is impressively low. But because we didn't have much notice of the moving date, it's much more a matter of throwing everything into cartons, and sorting out the junk later. At least we have professional movers to actually sling the cartons around, so it's not as bad as if we'd been moving things ourselves (in our recent house move, there was some discussion of the merits of moving versus leaving things like dirt [or "compost" if you like. We should have moved the compost {dirt} after all....]).

During the preparation for moving, an interesting difference between British and American English surfaced. One of the PhD students asked whether the movers would take care of our pot plants, or if we should move them ourselves. In US English, this question has a very different meaning, which might not be so appropriate to bring up so boldly in a workplace discussion (I know, this is academia. But still!!!!). You see, pot plants look like this in Britain:


But American pot plants are a little bit different:


In Britain, the term "pot plants" simply means "plants in pots" (unfortunately I don't discuss gardening enough to know what sort of plants can be considered "pot plants" if they're placed in the appropriate receptacles, nor which sorts of receptacles "pot plants" are allowed to be in). But in US English the term is dominated by "pot", an especially common American slang term for marijuana¹ (more often called "cannabis" in British English, and let's not get into the minefield of slang terms [I think you could probably select just about any word and claim it's a slang term for cannabis]). So if an American hears that a grad student is wondering about moving pot plants around, they sure won't be surprised. But if that student is talking about it at a lab meeting, they must be high.


¹Etymology of "pot" in this sense is unknown, according to the OED: Origin uncertain and disputed. The most popular theory explains the word as being derived from the supposed Mexican Spanish words *potiguaya or *potaguaya (cannabis leaves), or *potación de guaya, (literally ‘drink of grief’), supposedly denoting a drink of wine or brandy in which marijuana buds were steeped; however, no corroborating evidence has been found to support the use of any of these terms in Spanish (although *potiguaya is recorded in an English glossary of drug terminology slightly earlier than the earliest example of the present word.
The US-favored term "marijuana" also has rather murky origins once you cross the border: From Mexican Spanish "mariguana", "marihuana", of uncertain origin. It has been suggested that the Spanish word is from Nahuatl "mallihuan" prisoner. Forms [containing] "j" appear to be an English innovation (attested later also in French): occasional recent examples in Spanish prob. show English influence. Influence of a folk etymology from the Spanish personal name "María-Juana" or its familiar form "Mari-Juana" has frequently been suggested; if so this would appear to have occurred within English.
Good ol' British "cannabis" comes straight on from Latin or Greek.

Now that the Dunces have started settling into our new home, we've managed to find the time to start exploring the area a little bit. The past two weekends we've done some wandering just a teeny little bit off the tourist trail. Today's post is in honor of the Tottenham Cemetery where we had a short wander after a local history walk¹.

It's quite a large cemetery, and has enough vegetation that it feels like anything but the midst of a legendarily urban area:




The different sections are divided by narrow walkways, and many of the gates along the way are locked. Once we made our way inside, we found out the secret to getting from one section to another:


And here's the best gravestone we came across:


Unfortunately, we found that the cemetery also featured hobo-ish ne'er-do-well-type riffraff wandering about and menacing other visitors:


Or if not ne'er-do-wells, at least a wild-haired Dunce in full "California Hippie" mode (along with super-nerdy GPS-as-fashion-accessory). But this weekend was the end of the Hair Farm. The advance of summer made it impossible to keep going with long, crazy hair. No longer will complete strangers comment on my resemblance to "Mikey" from the US TV series "American Chopper", but it'll most likely be Philip Seymour Hoffman once again. I'm not complaining, anything is better than "Spaz" from Meatballs (I'm very sorry I couldn't find a picture of this character. Trust me, 1979 was not a good time for a nerd who resembled a comedy character called "Spaz"). If I had grown up in the UK, I suppose it might have been the Milky Bar Kid instead.


¹This entry should perhaps be about the local history walk itself! It was the first in a monthly series of local history walks put on by the newly organized Tottenham Civic Society (which soon will count the Dunces among its membership), starting at the fabulous Bruce Castle museum and then taking a loop around Tottenham. Which was formerly quite an exclusive area but now has a reputation of a grim, crime-ridden hole (and one of the few places where first-time buyers might claw their way onto the property ladder). So it was really interesting to see just how many interesting buildings from various eras are dotted around the area. In any event, we didn't actually take any pictures during our wander, but only afterwards. So you'll have to take my word for it.

Since we moved into the new flat, it's taken DunceCat some time to get used to the new situation. Everything smelled different, and there was the gross indignity of being locked inside for a month. But finally things are settling down, especially now that the weather has improved and we can open the front windows. She especially enjoys sitting in the front window spying on the neighbors. And watching us as well.



When I say "spying on the neighbors", well, she does watch people and cats coming and going down at street level. But really her focus is all upon our bird neighbors. There are quite a few of them who hang around the trees, roofs and power lines just above the window. So she spends a lot of her window time making birdcalls: odd, creaking sounds, interspersed with strange meows and chomping jaw movements (not sure whether these are intended to be threatening, or just wishful thinking. In turn, the birds squawk, swoop, and occasionally defecate in her general direction.



And then when she's done, it's time to ditch the window and patrol the rest of the house.



She's confident enough now to do full-speed rampages from one room to another, gripping the carpet for the sharpest turns, and skittering around the kitchen linoleum. But sometimes guarding on two fronts is just too much effort for one lonely cat.



But usually she's right back on duty in a few minutes' time. And woe betide anyone who tries to sneak past her. This is what it looks like if you try to enter a secured area without the correct pass:


None shall pass!

As I've mentioned a few times before, the Dunces have recently moved into a new flat which required some amount of cosmetic effort and modernization (you'll have to wait for an upcoming post to see more details). One urgent need was to replace the ancient water heater, a process not without its problems. But there was a tiny window of time between the removal of the old water heater and the installation of the new one, during which the wall behind the heater was visible.

The previous owner of the flat bought it in 1977, and did the place up to a high standard at that time (including installation of the now-dead water heater). So the wallpaper behind the heater dates from before that time, which you can tell at a glance from the picture below. At the top is a hole in the wall: the original flue for the water heater, which was badly filled by the heating engineers, then knocked out and patched more appropriately. Below the hole you can see a nice indication of some previous choices of decor. Most of which are nicer than the present wallpaper which we have not replaced or painted over just yet (mostly gray/greenish, textured and shiny, as you can see around the outside. On the right side, the whitish bits are actually the camera flash, reflected off the textured shiny bits).

Yes it's a huge picture; sorry about that but I felt it was the best way to clearly show the different patterns.



Coming soon in the "house" series... some before/after pictures of rooms we've actually done cosmetic work on.