DC Zoo Photos

My photos form the DC Zoo trip are on my Flickr page. Go check em out.

Christmas Board

After showing Colin, my 18 month old nephew, my skateboard a while back I made him a skateboard for Christmas. I cut this smaller shape out of an old full sized skateboard. Kellie made the graphic.

Good Times On Board

CJ and Tim came down form hampton and skated with Brendan and I. Good times where had by all.

Montage Two

Here are a handful of screen grabs from a montage I just edited. I just need to put titles in it and it'll be ready to go. It may not ever make it online though since Shane and I are doing a video. I might not want to burn this footage. Anyway, Some of this footage dates back to November 10, 2005. That's the date it was logged, not when it was shot. The latest clip was logged on November 23, 2008. The whole thing clocks in at a measly two minutes and thirty seconds. Pretty pathetic for three years worth of filming. Guess which screen grab does not appear in the final montage.

I Got Game

So a few months ago someone contacted me through Flickr to use my Cubicle Farm photo for a Swiss board game called Helvetiq. Well yesterday I got a thank you note and a copy of my card in the mail. The translation on the card form French to English is "Which is the company world number one of temporary work?" The answer: Adecco. Highlight the text for the answer.

Mac Humor

Mapple - The Simpsons
by aarplane

I haven't watched the Simpsons in a while, but this really kills.

Skatepark Obsession

Original Idea

Ever since I heard about the Design Input Meeting about the upcoming Norfolk Skatepark I've been obsessively drawing skatepark layouts and obstacles. I gave a bunch of drawings to the guys at the meeting last Saturday then came up with a new concept after talking with them about the site requirements and what not. Hopefully some of these ideas get incorperated into the final design.

New Design Overview. Click to see larger and read labelsObstacles that where hard ot render in the overhead view

I'm super psyched on this pyramid idea. I think only a model would truely be able ot represent it effectivly, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Sk8 Day

Sk8 Day from Mostly on Vimeo.

The Crap Shoot of the Presidency

Sarah Vowell and Kurt Anderson just had an interesting conversation about the crap shoot that is electing a president. For some reason I could listen to Sarah Vowell reading the phone book and be interested.

Mad Men X Simpsons

Two of the awesomest shows on TV get together to make an awesome collaborative intro.

Getting Footy

Just logged the footage from yesterday's session. Maybe it'll all end up in Shane Henry's video...

My First Pinhole Camera

I took photography twice in high school but never made a pin hole camera. Kellie was teaching pinhole cameras in her photography class, so I thought I'd give it a try.

I don't have a darkroom but I do have a changing bag and all the supplies for developing my own B&W film, so I made a film camera. I had the film going into an old film canister and wound it through a hole int eh box with a screwdriver.
Here you can see my aperture and shutter mechanism. Here is my first good exposure. The first roll was taken over an already used roll, so All I did was ruin some photos from our Seattle trip. Bummer. This second roll only had two good images on it. This is my neighbor's house shot from one of our windows. I got most of my building instructions form this Fecal Face tutorial, and all my exposure info from Kellie. I had stupidly expected my camera to be more of a wide angle, but I measured the focal length to be around 300mm. It was a lot of fun building this, and I hope to try some more pinhole photography in the future. Big thanks to Kellie for the inspiration.

Earth From Above

Aerial photography and environmentalism seem to go hand in hand. We had William Garnett in the 50's then David Maisel starting in the 80's. Most recently Yann Arthus-Bertrand's Earth From Above series. See 39 of the 150 images here on the Boston Globe's excellent Big Picture photo blog. The full exhibit is hitting 120 international cities and New York will host the images starting in May of 2009. Via: Chris Glass.

Autumn Garden

Summer is gone (good riddance) so most people are done with their gardens. Our tomatoes are still producing fruit, but I wanted to get some food growing for the autumn. I am growing basil and Hanover salad greens. I tried basil this summer but somehow I ended up growing a nice weed. I think the basil looks legit this time, and the Hanover salad tastes great already.

Type Is Art

My contributions to the Type Is Art fad going around these days.

Noma Bar

I stumbled across this interview with illustrator Noma Bar. His portraits are quite amazing in how they break the subject down but remain easily identifiable. I would absolutely love to see his sketch book. He just put out a book but doesn't have a website so check the google image search results.

Furniture

Have any of you guys ever gone furniture shopping? I mean like real shopping, not thrift store/craigslist shopping. New furniture is expensive and sucky. Kellie and I are on the hunt for a chair or chaise for under the window in our office. I'd like something like the Barcelona Chair which Kellie says "doesn't even look comfortable." She also shot down the idea of a bench for not being good for chilling which I can agree with, but you can hardly deny how nice the Florence Knoll Bench would look under the window. Too bad it's $1700! Incidently, Knoll also owns the rights to the Barcelona Chair and sells them for $6000. Rediculous! I read an article on Designer George Nelson who said "We are not building antiques of the future anymore,we are just making things to use and throw away." In the chair or chaise or whatever we end up getting I would like it to be a piece that can stand the test of time and will not just be something that we throw away once the appolstery starts to fade. What this means for us and our budget is a long search of second hand stores and estates sales in search of I don't know exactly what but I know it is out there.

I Need Some Rain Gear

I decided to ride my bike to work in the rain on Thursday. The result was a pretty wet pair of pants. Fortunately I come in an hour before anyone else does. I set up a 750 watt light and put my pants on light stands for about 30 minutes to get them good and dry. Next time I'll bring a spare pair of pants.

Shoe Box

The Shoebox Greeting Card blog is pretty funny. (weird, I know) Anyway, they remark on current events fairly often and I thought this quote was pretty dead on.

"The unemployment rate in the United States has reached a five-year high, rising recently to 6.1%. Someone in the government will get to that, just as soon as they’re done fighting, and getting elected, and doing some other stuff, you just wait."

I think this applies to both sides no matter who is in power.

Friday Off

I had a productive day off. I did laundry, (even ironed a shirt) dishes, blogging, hung some blinds, and built a flatbar all before 1PM. Not bad if I do say so myself.

Petra Haden

I just discovered Petra Haden and for some reason her music makes me really stoked. Her cover of Don't Stop Believing is amazing.

Squirrel baby

So I walk outside and see Dallas chilling with a baby squirrel. Dallas is a nice cat and all but I was worried about what his ideas might be in regards to this little guy.

I scooped him up and Kellie called Maggie to bring Dallas inside.


We took a few photos together then left hoping that some family member would find the little dude and bring him/her home safe and sound.

Photos by Kellette and Templeton.

Visions of China

I haven't been watching much of the Olympics. For the most part I just don't find it very interesting. The other day I stumbled upon the Visions of China blog by the NewsWeek photographers covering the games. For someone like me who could care less about the games I think photography really captures the feeling much better than TV does. Plus I've seen more events through this blog than I have through TV which seems to only show swimming when I tune in. For a gear head/photographer like me it is also interesting to see the gear and read how they set up their cameras and remote cameras to get the best shots. Director of Photography, Simon Barnett does a great job of giving insight into what makes a great sports photo in the Photo of the Day section. Take some time and scroll through the archives for some amazing images. If your interested in the gear, check the first post to see what these guys are packing (200lbs. of gear).

Smithsonian Photo Conttest

My parents give me hand me down issues of The Smithsonian Magazine which I enjoy reading. Every year they hold a photo contest that I don't remember until the issue with the winners comes out. This year I stumbled upon the information before the contest, so I'm gonna enter a few pictures. The deadline isn't until December, so I have some time to think about which picture to submit. You guys should think about submitting too. It would be so sick to get a photo published in The Smithsonian. The categories are Altered Images, Americana, Travel, People, and The Natural World.

Another Day Another Doodle

I went out back to take some some pictures of the garden but didn't get anything good and got devoured by mosquitoes. So I just did some doodling during Jeopardy. You can see we had a close game, but Kellie came out on top due to smart wagering in Final Jeopardy. The worst thing is I pretty much knew the answer. The answer was 8 1/2 by Fellini, and I answered 9 1/2. It just goes to show I get the gist of a lot of things but rarely get the details. The No Aloha is a reference to a song by the Breeders.

Pencil Doodles

I made these today while looking at Drawn.ca.

Grocery List Doodles

While Kellie was coloring her cartoon today, I was making a grocery list and doodling. Click on the image to see it big and read the text. The actual shopping list was cut out and taken to the grocery store, but you can see in the upper left corner we are going to eat sushi, pasta salad, wraps, and zucchini cakes this week.

Blondes Have More Fun

I started out with one idea then this sort of happened while I was looking for other stuff. Can anyone identify the base face???

The Circle of Life

We went out with the Werners and Ashes tonight and joked about doing art night at the bar, so Krystal broke out a pen and the doodling began. Brendan started things off with the two nudes then the bed. I came next with my depiction of a pregnant woman. next, Joe drew a baby watching America's Next Top Model. Kellie drew the kid on the skateboard (because that's what she hopes her own children will do at this age. Krystal drew the adolescent punk rocker and Rachel finished it off with the lazy office worker. Thanks for the good times guys!

Krystal doesn't have an internet life for me to link to...

Buy More Stuff

I'll add some color tomorrow.

No Way!

After a few false starts, I made these two drawings. The No Way one is inspired by Sister Corita Kent whom I heard about on Weekend America a while back and just remembered again today while racking my brain for something to do today. I discovered that i really like words, so expect more words in the future.

Mic Check

I guess the music inspired me tonight. I need to get some real inspiration soon...

Inspiration Troubles

Hopefully tomorrow's will be better.

Holga Shots

Here are my 35mm Holga shots from Saturday. Below are some bonus shots from the same roll form the last time I went out to see the big trees. I really gotta fix that big light leak which causes the bright spots. Enjoy...

SX-70

I made this drawing yesterday so I'll count it as a make up for Friday when I didn't draw anything.

Diver

I read an interview with Jason Dill today which included a few collages he had made which got me thinking about making collages, so that's what I did today. This one is very similar to the work of Thomas Allen.