Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Back when I was drawing our names in Mayan hieroglyphs [1], I briefly considered doing the same thing but with Egyptian hieroglyphs. I was ultimately deterred because the rules for writing in Ancient Egyptian are a lot more rigid and I didn't want to have to draw every single glyph that I wanted to use. Furthermore, a full royal name in Egyptian consists of five names. This is called a fivefold titulary or royal protocol.[2] The first name, or Horus Name, is written inside a serekh, which represents the palace. It is called the Horus name because a falcon, the symbol of the Egyptian god Horus, is typically depicted on top of or nearby the serekh. The second name is also called the Nebty Name. Nebty means "two ladies" and refers to two goddesses, Nekhbet and Wadjet, who are heralds of Upper and Lower Egypt, respectively. The nebty name is typically preceded by a symbol that combines the symbols of the two goddesses (a vulture and a cobra) sitting on top of two baskets. The third name, or Golden Horus Name, is usually preceded by the falcon symbol perched on the symbol for gold. The last two names, the Throne Name (or praenomen) and the Personal Name (or nomen; i.e., "birth name") are written inside of cartouches (also called shen rings). The Throne Name is accompanied by the glyphs for a sedge and a bee (implying kingship over both the valley and delta regions of Ancient Egypt) while the Personal Name is accompanied by the glyphs for a duck and the sun (meaning "son/daughter of Ra").

So, what changed? Why am I drawing the Egyptian hieroglyphs now? Well, I noticed that Wikipedia has a script for writing hieroglyphics, so I simply figured out how to use it and then copied the pictures. Let me tell you how it works.

Women's Script

This is my final (for now [1]) post about the writing systems from Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive. As far as I understand, Brandon comes up with a general idea for how the writing system should function and then Isaac Stewart, Brandon's in-house artist, does the legwork of designing the letters. The women's script is the alphabet that is read by women on the planet of Roshar. It was designed to look like waveforms.[2][3] It is written left to right and has no punctuation except for a vertical line at the beginning of a passage that establishes the maximum character height. This is useful because some characters are identical except for their size.[4] Rosharans also like things to be symmetrical, so they often try to make their names have reflectional symmetry.[5][6] Let's see what my family's names look like written in the women's script. (And we'll just ignore that I, a man, am writing it.)

Found Treasures IX: Guardian Angel

This is one of several stories I've written that are based in part on a dream that I've had. Reading it now, I find it a little heavy handed. Had I the inclination to rewrite this story, there are parts of it that should definitely be more subtle. By the title you can guess that it concerns a guardian angel. I personally do not believe in guardian angels, but I saw no problem using one in a fictional setting.

Found Treasures VIII: Singular: Louse

This is a second found treasure that takes a playful stab at my high school English teacher, Mr. Yates.[1] It didn't start out that way, though. At first it was just an exercise in mocking some of the unusual plurals that exist in the English language [2]—though sometimes the fake singulars/plurals I came up with weren't particularly clever themselves. I brought it all back in in the last paragraph, but then it got away from me and ended on a rather abrupt digression from the previously established pattern. It's fun but not important enough to fix up.

Thaylen Glyphs

Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive (which I read last year) takes place on a planet called Roshar. One of the countries on Roshar is called Thaylenah. Thaylen writing is based on the same letters that are used for making glyphpairs [1], but with some important differences.[2] First, Thaylen is an abjad, which is a writing system that only has consonants. As a result, the spoken language tends to produce large consonant clusters.[3] Second, Thaylen is written vertically. It is implied that Thaylen is a unique language, but in the pictures in The Stormlight Archive books they are used to write transliterated English. Just as I've already done with Rosharan glyphpairs, I decided to write the names of my family members using Thaylen letters.

Rosharan Glyphpairs

I resisted starting Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive for a long time because 1. he hasn't finished the series yet, 2. he says it's going to be 10 books long, 3. each book is over 1000 pages, and 4. it takes him 3–4 years to publish each one. The fourth book is set to publish this year (2020), which means that we can expect him to finish the series by 2038. 2038! By that time I'll be 58 years old. (And Brandon will be 63!) Brandon's books are so intricate that I don't think I can keep track of all the characters and plot details for that long. So my plan was to just wait until they were all published and then read all ten in one go. But then Leann started reading the first book, The Way of Kings, and I couldn't fall behind, so I started reading it along with her.[1] In the story we learn that men who follow the religion Vorinism are forbidden from learning to read.[2] Men will still use marks, called glyphs, to identify themselves or signify a particular idea.[3] The glyphs are formed from actual letters, but the letters are calligraphically stylized. Glyphs are often combined into a glyphpair. I decided to create glyphpairs for the members of my family.

Mayan Hieroglyphs, Part VII

It's been a few years, now, since I posted anything to this blog. Looking back I can see that the time I had available for blogging decreased with each new child. We now have three children, but I've only drawn Mayan hieroglyphic names for two of them.[1], Our third child is already three, but I've always had this nagging desire to draw a Mayan name for him so that everything will be rounded out and complete.

Lincoln's First Hallowe'en 2013

This year we went to the 'trunk-or-treat' [1] at the Church the weekend before Hallowe'en and then on Hallowe'en day we took Lilli trick-or-treating in the neighborhood south of our apartment complex. It was cold and rainy, so we only went to about ten houses. This actually worked in our favor because the people we visited were afraid they wouldn't get any more trick-or-treaters, so they gave Lilli handfuls of candy. She quickly caught on and started asking for "another person" as soon as she'd gotten her candy from someone.

Morning Fog

Fog is one of my favorite weather patterns. Getting lost in it doesn't bother me at all (driving in it doesn't bother me terribly, either [1]). I like how it dampens sound, making everything seem serene and peaceful (I like the same thing about snowfall). A week after Lincoln was born [2], when we all woke up it was foggy outside. I took Lilli for little walk around our apartment complex and took some pictures. Since I don't really have any comments to give about the pictures, I'm also sharing a poem that I wrote in college about fog.

Little Singer

Lilli has enjoyed music for a long time, now. When we still lived in Provo she became obsessed with "Call Me Maybe" (in particular the version by the US Olympic swimming team [1]). Another example: she hates riding in the car, but she'll tolerate it if we let her listen to a Disney soundtrack (her current favorite is The Little Mermaid). However, it wasn't until recently that she's started memorizing lyrics and singing them herself. It started with The Alphabet Song [2] and has been slowly expanding ever since. Here are some of the other children's songs she's learned:

Hallowe'en Bulwer-Lyttons I

I've previously described the concept behind the Bulwer-Lytton contest [1], but I'll briefly refresh you on the main points. The gist of it is to write the worst possible opening line for a novel. There is a formal contest held every year by the English Department of San José State University [2], but my friends of the former BYU 38th Ward Book Club and I like to hold an informal one every year for Hallowe'en (as part of what we call The Kingdom of Horror). What follows are the worst first lines I could come up with in the inaugural year of the Hallwe'en Bulwer-Lytton (2011). I am only posting my own creations here; however, if you just can't get enough of bad opening lines, you can also read those of my friends.[3] (Warning: Some are not for the faint in heart.)

Mayan Hieroglyphs VI

It's been a few years, now, since I last drew Mayan hieroglyphs [1], but now that we have a fourth member of our family [2] it's time to draw another. A quick glance at the archives will show that my posting frequency has been in decline. So even though Lincoln was born three weeks ago, it's taken me a while to actually post about it. I finished the drawing for this post several days ago, but I'm just now posting the description.

Graphical Web Page Representation

Today I stumbled onto this website: http://www.aharef.info/static/htmlgraph/. It runs an applet (so you must have Java installed) that analyzes the html code of any website you submit (must start with http://) and creates a representative graphical output. The result is pretty neat. Below I'll show you some of the maps I've created using this website.

Logo Ambigrams

It's been a while since I posted any ambigrams.[1] That's partly because of how busy I was working on my dissertation last year. It's also because of some of the technical demands in this batch of ambigrams. I wanted to take logos that already existed and convert them into ambigrams. So not only did I have to make words that were mostly legible when read in either direction, but I also had to maintain, as much as possible, the visual style and integrity of the original logo.

NOTE: to pause the animated .gif images, simply hit the ESC key on your keyboard. To resume, hit the refresh button on your browser.

Lilli Turns Two!

A week ago yesterday Lilli turned two years old. While I was at work, Lilli helped Leann make the cupcakes for her birthday. Well, maybe she just helped lick the frosting off the beater… I came home half an hour early just for the occaision. When I walked through the front door I saw that the apartment had been transformed during my absence. There was yellow crêpe paper strung all over the kitchen—including streamers attached to the blades of the ceiling fan (which is actually pretty cool when you turn it on). Lilli was running around with two punch balloons (Leann prefers these because they're less likely to pop). And there was a big pile of presents in the living room. For dinner we ate her favorite food: beef pot pies.[1]

Map Projection of Blue Jeans

I was sitting in Elder's Quorum [1] last week watching the fellow in front of me playing with his infant. The little baby boy was wearing a tiny pair of jeans. Just for fun, I began sketching in my notebook the pattern of yellow stitching. Since I was drawing in only two dimensions, I flattened everything. Rather than simulate three dimensions through the use of shading, I sought to capture the entire surface. As with rendering a two-dimensional map of a three-dimensional Earth, I was forced to introduce distortions in order to capture the details I wanted and present them in a particular way.[2] So, I present to you my map projection of blue jeans.

Autumn Photos

This post is just a smattering of photos I've taken this last autumn since it's pretty much over. Two nights ago we got so much snow that fallen tree branches (and even a few fallen trees) now litter the streets of Provo. So winter has unequivocally begun. All but the first three of the photographs are from a walk Leann and I went on to scout out a place to take some pictures of Lilli. Our neighbor, who has a nicer camera than we do, was willing to take photos of Lilli with her cousin Lizzie in their Hallowe'en outfits.[1]

Hallowe'en 2012

Last Saturday Leann ran in the Provo Zombie Chase.[1] She was joined by her friend, Jordan, and my sister, Ashley. To do so they had to sign a waiver saying that they understood that they would not be allowed to jump headfirst into any of the mud pits and that the water they would be running through had not been tested for chemicals or pathogens. Based on this I expected them to have to run through the swamp and brush around Utah lake trying to get away from 'zombies' who were chasing them. If the 'zombies' caught them they were either out of the race or they became 'zombies', too. No such luck. They just ran around a dirt track which had a few obstacles like a pile of gravel, a cargo net stretched across two shipping containers, etc. They didn't have to run through swamps or mud pits. Furthermore, the 'zombies' hissed and snarled at them, and sometimes lunged at them, but they didn't actually chase the runners. I was rather let down, but I guess it wasn't really my race anyway. But at one point they did get to shoot at some 'zombies' with paintball guns.

Maeser Hill

This is the last horror story I wrote for the BYU 38th Ward Book Club in its inaugural year.[1] As with the other stories I wrote that year, I drew heavily from other sources. In this case, I based the story on something that happened to my mother when she was an undergraduate at BYU. She had to stay in Provo by herself during Christmas and she was nervous because they had a peeping Tom. They could see his footprints in the snow outside of one of her roommate's windows. Fortunately nothing happened…to my mom, that is. Her fictional counterpart might not be so lucky… Read on if you dare! Happy Hallowe'en!

NOTE: I've annotated this story, but I recommend you read it all the way through before reading the notes.

The Ghost of the AXMB

During my time as a BYU custodian I worked mostly in the Auxiliary Services Maintenance Building (AXMB).[1] One evening the other student custodian for the AXMB had to go home early, so after the 7 pm break I was finishing up by myself. I heard a loud crash out in the automotive repair shop, so I went out there to investigate. The lights were all off except one and it was a little spooky in there.  One of the other custodians, a girl named Janelle, finished the University Press Building early, so our boss sent her over to help me finish. She came into the repair shop behind me without me hearing, so when she started talking to me I was quiet startled. I used that experience to write another horror story for the BYU 38th Ward Book Club.[2] Read on if you dare! Happy Hallowe'en!

NOTE: I've annotated this story, but I recommend you read it all the way through before reading the notes.