Chairs!

I got some free chairs off craigslist. All but one of them needed repair (dowel replacement). A bag of ribbed joining dowels cost me $1.99, so effectively I spent 50 cents a chair. HURRAY!

I still have to fix the last one, but once I do I'll have 2 pairs of matching chairs.



I finally have a place to sit at my table.

Catching Up

I'm catching up on the last few weeks of reading for Zara's class, and I just finished reading Chapter 2 from The Society of the Spectacle.

Holy crap.

Reading that thing made my head spin. I'm hoping that it's just a side effect of translation, but there is so much double talk in that thing I had to read each paragraph over about three times.

Having gotten through it though, I must admit that I really dig it. It really fits nicely with a piece I started work on the other night.

I dig this quote (which seems to be rephrased and reiterated at least a dozen times in this chapter) "...the real world is replaced by a selection of images which are projected above it, yet which at the same time succeed in making themselves regarded as the epitome of reality."

Awesome.

I can't help but find myself thinking about Magritte's Treachery of Images though...

Where I was going

when I fell.



(This is NOT where I was. This picture is of the successful try. When I fell I was at the top of the wall at the top of the steps. Way less straight drop.)

Please forgive the quick photoshop stitch job.

Magic

A wet wash cloth, a running fan, a few advil and five extra hours of sleep are a magical combination.

Wooo 2009

Three things.
1) Happy New Year everybody! Hope yours was as great as mine.
2) As of 90 minutes ago, I'm back in Portland
3) @Zach Rose: Baked fries are GREAT if you spray them lightly with olive oil and bake them on a rack. This is also known as air frying and its... its the bees knees. It's just tops.

(edit: Okay, I lied, there's a fourth thing. I've got about 3-5 blog posts waiting in the wings to be written and posted. Lots of cool stuff. Yep)

Escape from Portland

Happy holidays one and all!

I'd like to share with you the tale of my escape from Portland.

Between Friday and Sunday 8~10 inches of snow fell on Portland, royally screwing things up. The cold killed off my already weak car battery leaving me in the hands of public transit for getting around. Sunday this was fine, but on Monday, an hour after I arrived at work, service on my route was cancelled. In order to get home, I had to take a bus that got me within a mile of my house, and then hiked the rest of the way home.

The snow was deep. (And largely non-shovelled and non-compressed.)



Tuesday the snow had stopped falling, but the roads were still covered in snow. My bus route was still cancelled. Airport shuttles were not running, and taxis would only pick you up if you were medical personnel trying to get to a hospital.



Tuesday also happened to be the day I was flying out. This lack of easy transit nearly had me thinking I was going to have to hike to the airport, which would have...well, it would have sucked hard, and probably would have kept me from leaving. After some serious research into the status of various bus and MAX lines, I eventually found a way to get to the airport.

It took a half mile snow hike (with luggage), a bus down Lombard to the MAX yellow line, a shuttle that was running to supplement the yellow line because the switches were frozen, two more MAX lines (blue to Gateway, Red to the airport) and a total of two hours to get to the airport.

Thankfully I gave myself 7 hours to get from my house to catch my flight, so I still had 5 hours to kill. Also working in my favor: I wasn't the only one who had a hard time getting to the airport.



Because of this... shall we say... shabby attendance, I managed to get on standby for an earlier flight, and despite the fact that people had been able to fly out of Portland for the three days prior, I managed to get on the flight, and arrive in San Francisco an hour before my original flight was scheduled to leave.



Which was great... since when I later checked my flight, it got delayed three and a half hours.

Tweet.

Have I mentioned that I've succumb to twitter?

...Well, I have.

Snowed In

A considerable amount of snow fell today (no idea the actual depth) so I bunkered down at home and watched a bunch of movies I had yet to see. (Can you believe I hadn't seen 40 year old virgin before now?)

I also disassembled semaphore-bot v2.0 and built a robot arm out of its servos, aluminum rods, and rubber bands. It's got 3 points of articulation, but currently no hand. Unfortunately my arduino is in my studio at the stag. ... so it's not currently running.

Today...

I woke up and put on my work uniform. I'm now taking it off to go to bed. While it was a relatively good day at work, the above mentioned circumstances are my definition of a bad day.

Klutz

I'm still at my parents house in California (until my 6 am flight tomorrow) and I found an old Klutz book sitting on my shelf. (Specifically a Klutz Aerobe book)

After reading it through, and completely loving it, I decided to hit up Klutz's website to read up a bit more on the company.

On the bottom of the about us page I saw this line "For those of you who collect corporate mission statements, here's the Klutz credo: "

Collect corporate mission statements? I've never heard such a thing. But really, they tend to be modern day equivalents of Confucian doctrine, so it's a neat idea (there I go using the word neat again.).

I'm going to begin my collection with Klutz: Create wonderful things, be good, have fun.

I'm down in the Bay Area

I'm down in the Bay Area and the internet was down for the last 4 hours. But that's ok. I'm on vacation.

Lesson Learned

Wind sprints are for out doors, or at least, not for 3 am when Dom is asleep down stairs.

...sorry.

The unconscious mind.

My alarm went off at 8:30 this morning.

*bee-da-be-boo bee-da-be-boo* (I memorized this rhythm when I was 10...)

I woke up, got out of bed, trudged across the room, hit the snooze button, and flopped back into bed.

-3 minutes later-
*bee-da-be-boo bee-da-be-boo*

Again: out of bed, across room, snooze, flop.

Repeat every 3 minutes until 9 (when I remembered I had a meeting to get to and woke up)

What confuses me though is that the entire time I was doing this get up and snooze routine... I was convinced I was conducting a sports interview.

...yeah, makes no sense to me either.

Can't sleep.

My mind is racing.

Actually, cluttered is a more accurate way to view it, but one way or another, I'm awake. I have a 9 am meeting at work, and I'm not asleep. Can I say "this is not restful" any other way?

So, instead of sleeping, I'm reading an interview on Kicksology.net with Wilson Smith III, and I just read a quote that I really like. (Well, a meta-quote... a quote of a quote)

"When I studied architecture in school one of my professors said: "We're teaching you about architecture. We're not necessarily making you an architect." The great thing about that way of looking at it is that once you understand the concept of how to put a building together, you can apply that to almost anything."

Yeah, I like that.

Beach Day!

I've got no real commitments today, so Nate, Travis, and I are going to the beach.

Yay beach day!

Oh happy day.

I have more at home.

Shit...

It's 1:30, I'm about 75% done sewing a project... and my needle just broke.

Time to head home and see if I have any spares.

[Cursing goes here!]

This could have been a good week, really it could.

But no, it's generally been a bad week.
Sunday night I broke my cellphone. Now I can only use it if I'm wearing a headset.

Tonight, I get off work and I find that the little triangle window of my car is smashed, there's glass all over the back seat, and my glove box and console are both emptied. As far as I can tell all they got was 1) my TomTom gps (sn: JQ5050JVQKQ ) and 2) my iPod (sn: Y14467D00333 ) , which was a 4gb mini, and fairly old. Still, what the hell?

(For the record, yes, I know you shouldn't leave those things in the car, but that's where I use them, and if I take them out, I almost always forget to bring them with me.)

First Things First

Okay, before I spend another 3 hours here avoiding actually writing about this stuff, let me take a quick moment to talk about the 1964 and 2000 First Things First Manifestos.

When I talk to people about being a digital arts major, I'm generally met with confused stares. It makes sense, "Digital Arts" is such a vague term that it seems to carry no inflection of what I do. In many ways I'm really thankful for this fact, since it also carries with it few restrictions on what I can focus on. When I was still in community college I leapt from Computer Engineering into Graphic Design because I felt that design would allow me a more meaningful means of interaction/communication. Like engineering though, pure design seemed to be missing something as well, sure I now had a means to engage people, but I had no substance to engage them with. After I transferred though, I found a means to backslide a bit, into a sort of middle ground between engineering/innovation and the tools of communication. So when asked what it is I want to do after college, I try to explain to people what it is I do now. Most think about this for a second, blink, and come back with "ok, but how do you want to use that after college." Not having the words to explain it in terms better than "I want to engage people" I start to talk about how it can be used for things such as marketing. Is this the noblest cause? Depends on the product or service really. But in any case it pays, and for many people what they really seem to be asking is "how will this secure you an income."

The First Things First manifestos are both declarations to use artistic/design skills for purposes other than mass marketing. What I find interesting is that the only difference between the two publications seems to be the suggested alternatives:

1964 There are signs for streets and buildings, books and periodicals, catalogues, instructional manuals, industrial photography, educational aids, films, television features, scientific and industrial publications and all the other media through which we promote our trade, our education, our culture and our greater awareness of the world.

2000 There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help.

If you compare the two the alternatives to advertising suggested in 2000 seem almost purely...I have no word for it other than noble causes. "Social Marketing," "educational tools," "charitable causes"...

I'm not scoffing at these suggestions, they're certainly positive things. What I find odd/unfortunate is the things they left off from 1964 like "signs for streets and buildings," "scientific and industrial publications," "and all the other media through which we promote our trade, our education, our culture and our greater awareness of the world." (I really like that last bit.)

The focus between 1964 and 2000 seems to shift from using design meaningfully to using design nobly. Noble is good, but meaningful is far more relevant.

Meaningfulness vs Nobility aside though, I feel like First Things First miss one important problem, especially when ending the 2000 manifesto with "Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart." I refuse to believe that there's a shortage of artists/designers out there who are uninterested in fulfilling more meaningful purposes. What I do believe is that there's a market shortage of demand, ie: people willing to pay, for them to do it. Most of the initiatives they offer as alternatives in the 2000 manifesto are things typically done by designers as pro-bono work, and while pro-bono work is vital to the soul, doing it exclusively can be troublesome for the landlord.

"The discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learner's souls,

because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves...You give your disciples not truth but only the semblance of truth; they will be heroes of many things, and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing." - Socrates, "Phaedrus"

I found this quote while reading Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium is the Massage" and as much as I want to, I can't say I disagree, at least not when speaking from the point of view of personal experience.

I have an awful, AWFUL memory when it comes to absolute facts. I used to joke that it took 12 introductions before I remembered my last girlfriend's name. My memory isn't THAT bad...but it's pretty horrible. However, what I do learn nearly instantly is WHERE to find particular pieces of information.

Is this the alphabet's fault?