User:Renice

About this Wikipedian

This user maintains a blog at blog.renice.com.

This user posts to Twitter as renice.

This user keeps delicious weblinks as renice.

@This user can be reached by email.

enThis user is a native speaker of the English language.

This user is from the United States of America, but please don't hold it against her.

This user is a native Texan.

9	This user has set foot in 9 countries of the world.

UIUC	This user has a BFA and an MA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This editor is a WikiGnome.

This user supports medicinal use of cannabis. Stop the lies; legalize!

Renice is registered WikiPedia-user and occasional contributor Renice Wernette.

(See BreadCrumbs for Self-portrait on Multiple Dimensions, as well as demo of artConceptual, languageBarrier, gameAttempt, processCreative, processNegEliminate, conceptMultiples:

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(Score: '"|"' =+1000, birdBrain=+500, besos:bang=[+/?/-]250<--honorSystem :>})

The Glossary)

About the name

The word Renice is, in this case, a frankenword created by a friend of my parents when the birth of a daughter rendered them dumbstruck. The name incorporates parts from my father's first and middle names: Clarence Maurice.

Much older than, and originally unrelated to, the Unix command rēnīce, Rĕniece is known to have been used as a person's name as early as 1905. Historically, Renice has been used to name both male and female offspring. Currently, I know of people with the given name Renice who reside in the US, Japan, and New Zealand.

I once wanted to rename myself, but I know now that when we look for positivity, we find it in surprising places. I like to think of 'ReNice' as referring to positive recursion; it's a nice 're-minder' to be more positive :>

Pet Tasks

Like many editors, I am detail-oriented. I make spelling, grammar, word-choice, and logic corrections in any article I happen to be reading (see my contributions thus far). Recently, I've been thinking about the The Asperger Riddle. I started learning how to do things on Wikipedia by focusing on the issues below, and I'm still learning.

Colossoma macropomum
A pacú, also known as Tambaqui, for sale in the Manaus Fish Market, Brazil. Photographer Thorke Østergaard noted that this fish was approximately 34.3 inches (85 cm) long.

Pacu

I've loved ichthyology since Cary Grant taught me the word [[1]].

Inspired by a single so-called 'news' video heralding a 'freak' fish which supposedly had "human teeth", I began rewriting the article on pacú.

I have come to believe that the US aquaria trade should be restricted from importing these fish for hobbyists. However, this isn't likely to occur without a little education.

I wrote a photographer for permission to use this great photo. It's good for a sense of scale -- this is the same species that is sold to home aquarists in the US, and its growth is not inhibited by a small tank as many hobbyist believe!

Printmaking

As an artist, I have considered myself a printmaker since creating my first woodcut at age 11 (an image of Santa Claus with a martini -- it was 1965, what more can I say). The media is well suited to my stylistic predilection for pattern and flattened space. My work has included woodcuts, linocuts, blind embossing, chine collé, etching, lithography, silkscreen, pochoir, polaroid transfers, xerography, and ink-jet prints.

I have an M.A. in Art Education and, among other studio techniques, I have taught printmaking to every age group from pre-schoolers to senior citizens.

So, I had planned on reorganizing the Printmaking article. This is my draft of the Printmaking revision -- collaboration, comments, suggestions, and advice invited.

Visual arts project

My grandfather was a painter and gave me my first set of oil paints when I was six (my mother was horrified). Soon after, I got my first taste of graphic design when he approved or rejected my design submissions for inclusion in his murals.

I started working full-time as a graphic designer at 16. I later got a degree in Art History, and then Art Education. I continued working in the field of visual communications throughout school, as well as after, under various titles including communications manager, web designer, information designer, assistant design director, graphic designer, commercial artist, layout artist, and illustrator. I've worked with a variety of companies and clients, including a recording label, a performing arts center, an art museum, computer software companies, and computer consulting groups.

WikiProject Visual Arts has a lot of ground to cover, so I'm sure to find a few things there to keep me engaged. One of the things I'd like to do is help define and more consistently apply the categories Visual arts genres, Visual arts media, Visual arts materials, and Artistic techniques (see discussion on WikiProject Visual arts).

The Western White House

I was surprised recently when I saw an official sign proclaiming President Dubya's Crawford Texas ranch "The Western White House". I googled the term and found that private residences of several presidents have been unofficially and officially dubbed the Western White House -- however, it was Bush's Administration that created the logo seen during press briefings and photo ops at Crawford. When the logo first appeared during Bush's August 2001 vacation, Time magazine suggested that the logo "gives the press center a certain air of formality." ("Pictures of the Week". Time. August 2001.) That's one way to put it. Another might be that the sign was a 'preemptive strike' against anticipated complaints about the President's month-long Texas vacations (Ken Herman (2006-08-04). "Bush will have shorter summer ranch stay". Austin-American Statesman.).

At any rate, the lack of information on the historical use of the term, as well as misinformed bloggers' outrage (not that they shouldn't be outraged, just that they should better understand and properly direct their outrage, ahem) over the current use of the term, has prompted me to start accumulating informative tidbits in the Western White House article. Additionally, for the sake of posterity, I've started uploading photos documenting the use of the relatively new official signage:

• 
  President George W. Bush gives remarks on Hurricane Katrina and the Iraqi constitution from his Crawford, Texas ranch on Sunday August 28, 2005.
• 
  President George W. Bush speaks with the Prime Minister of Lebanon during a phone call at the Bush Ranch in Crawford, Texas, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2006.
• 
  President George W. Bush is joined by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as he delivers a statement Monday, Aug. 7, 2006, on the Middle East crisis during a news conference in Crawford, Texas.
• 
  President George W. Bush delivers a statement on the passing of former President Gerald R. Ford from Crawford, Texas, Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2006.