Month: March 2006

inside out

30/032006

On my walk back from the bak­ery. I was enjoy­ing the sky. We have a con­sid­er­able amount of avail­able sky where we live. Plen­ty of space to view what shapes the clouds are mak­ing. Imag­ine my sur­prise to be on the out­side look­ing in and find­ing every­thing was inside out.

These are my favorite fotomoments.

designphiladelphia 2006

27/032006

designphiladelphia
This is a pho­to of the design­philadel­phia cal­en­dar for 2006. Those are some oth­er col­or­ful items I have on my desk.
Our friend Hilary is Direc­tor of The Design Cen­ter at Philadel­phia Uni­ver­si­ty. She is smart, fun, and tire­less in her efforts to expose the val­ue of design to the pub­lic. She is one of the direc­tors of design­philadel­phia.

In its sec­ond year design­philadel­phia will take place from April 1 ‑9. If you are in or near Philadel­phia the first week of April come and expe­ri­ence the vibran­cy and diver­si­ty of our design­com­mu­ni­ty. There are more than 50 events tak­ing place across the city includ­ing gallery tours, pub­lic lec­tures, exhi­bi­tions, work­shops and parties.

I’ll be try­ing to go to as many events as I can. I’ll try to post my expe­ri­ences here.

You can point your brows­er to http://www.designphiladelphia.org/ and find out what’s happening.

You can pick up a copy of the cal­en­dar at the AIA Book­store.

This is Hilary’s offi­cial bio.
In 2000, Hilary Jay became Direc­tor of The Design Cen­ter at Philadel­phia Uni­ver­si­ty (TDC), charged with repo­si­tion­ing the insti­tu­tion to reflect the university’s broad­en­ing design and tech­nol­o­gy cur­ricu­lum. Under its new mis­sion, TDC inves­ti­gates the uses, effects and mean­ings of design in our every­day lives. Dur­ing the past four years, TDC has won sup­port and fund­ing for ground­break­ing exhi­bi­tions and sym­posia such as What Is Design Today?, Hop­ping Fences: Influ­ences in Mod­ern Liv­ing, and Sim­ple & Direct. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Jay was the design colum­nist for the Philadel­phia Inquir­er Sun­day Mag­a­zine and City Edi­tor for Met­ro­pol­i­tan Home. Jay co-found­ed Max­i­mal Art, an inter­na­tion­al cos­tume jew­el­ry com­pa­ny mar­ket­ed through­out the Unit­ed States, Europe and Japan, and col­lect­ed by London’s Vic­to­ria and Albert Muse­um and Musée des Arts Dec­o­rat­ifs in Paris. Jay present­ly serves on the board of the AIA, Philadel­phia Chap­ter as their pub­lic member.

flexible tripod

26/032006

joby tripod

This is the Joby Goril­la­pod. It costs 23 bucks. You just have to buy one. Want to be con­vinced? Go to their web­site : http://www.joby.com My first thought was, I have to by this. No more screw­ing around find­ing a flat sur­face. Espe­cial­ly on those hikes in the Adiron­dacks. Sec­ond thought was … geeze I need a remote con­trol for my cam­era. So now I’m look­ing for the right lit­tle hand­held dig­i­tal goody. My film Canon ELF is no more. The film can­nis­ter is no longer man­u­fac­tured… bum­mer. I loved shoot­ing with it. So now I am in search of the per­fect lit­tle dig­i­tal to go with the Joby I am ordering.

So if you have any sug­ges­tions for the cam­era I should get I would love to hear them.
When you see the ani­ma­tion you’ll fall in love. If you are the out­doors type you can pur­chase it at REI, or if you are a pho­to geek go to B&H.

coffee or tea?

25/032006

cof­fee or tea
Orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by S.e.v.e.n.

I was wan­der­ing around flickr and found this love­ly vingette.

We have the same kind of shrine in our home. Var­i­ous teapots, cof­fee pots, press­es, and cups. Lit­tle spoons, bas­kets, sug­ar cubes, and cream­ers too.
One of the com­ments men­tioned this blog Teapots, Teapots, Teapots from a fel­low in the UK. I wan­dered on over and had a blast. You might want to go over and take a look tea drinker or not. It’s a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence. Just like vis­it­ing a lit­tle tea shop.
In Philadel­phia we have quite a few won­der­ful places to have tea. We are very fond of Great Tea Inter­na­tion­al. Char­lotte, the own­er, will help you make selec­tions will pro­vide you with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to try some­thing adventurous.

Peace­ful and friend­ly. Relax, con­verse, work, study, or meditate.
Great Tea Inter­na­tion­al | 1724 San­som Street | Philadel­phia, PA
215. 568. 7827

no moving parts

24/032006

Just found this today.

Sam­sung devel­ops dri­ve to replace hard disk
see arti­cle here
Sam­sung Elec­tron­ics said on Wednes­day it had devel­oped a new data stor­age medi­um for mobile com­put­ers that enables users to process data much faster with min­i­mal con­sump­tion of power.

I have been wait­ing for when we would have devices that would keep our lap­tops cool, save bat­tery pow­er, and make our devices lighter.
An excit­ing development.

message belt

23/032006

mes­sage beltIf you click on the image you
can find out which phone is mine.

I just found this while sort­ing through some flickr stuff. I dump all my images there just for a back up. Up pops this one from my par­ents 50th wed­ding anniver­sary. This is the kind of stuff we do when we are togeth­er. We all love gad­gets. Every­one had a cell­phone, every­one had a dig­i­tal cam­era… some had phones with cam­eras. Its a con­sumer kind of thing. We are a fam­i­ly of ear­ly adop­tion. I remem­ber us hav­ing one of the first tele­vi­sions. I remem­ber us hav­ing the first col­or tele­vi­sion in the neigh­bor­hood. I remem­ber us hav­ing the coolest stereo.

I’m not quite sure if this is genet­ic or learned behav­ior. When I was a kid I would help my dad fix tvs in the garage. I would help him degauss the set before return­ing it to a neigh­bor. I held the sol­der for him as he would add the flux. It was great fun to hold a mir­ror so he could see what the pic­ture looked like while mess­ing with the con­trols in the back. I love to open up my devices… I changed the bat­tery in my ipod [with help from Peter who gouged his hand]. I replace hard disks, video cards.… I love to sol­der things. I’m still think­ing about upgrad­ing my cube [see moments of inde­ci­sion] because I just want to keep using that sweet thing.

I don’t like to throw things away. I like to fix them, upgrade them, use them for some­thing they weren’t intend­ed for… I want to know how things work. I want them to do some­thing different.

a film in progress

21/032006

Manua02.jpg
My dear friend [and acupunc­tur­ist] is also a fil­mak­er. When I learned that he would be mak­ing a film about “the inner life of each of us” it was clear that there was some­thing I could do. Help get the word out. This is a beau­ti­ful and thought­ful film. Still in pro­duc­tion and in need of addi­tion­al funding.
Using word­press we were able to get some­thing man­age­able up quickly.
Find out about the film at Like the leaves in my hand…

farewell good friend

20/032006

my glass desk

This desk has sup­port­ed many a crazy idea. thought­ful pro­pos­al, check sign­ing, thank you and intro­duc­tion. It has been the cen­ter­piece of three dif­fer­ent stu­dios. I have enjoyed its com­pa­ny and its pres­ence. I will miss it dearly.

I’ve recon­fig­ured my office to share with my part­ner. I feel this need to doc­u­ment such an impor­tant event. I haven’t giv­en up my sov­er­eign­ty — but It has always been meant to be a part­ners’ space. When we moved into the space I had designed a part­ners desk but alas ran out of mon­ey to make it. So until now I have used my glass desk. It’s a hand­some glass desk from IKEA. It now is on long term loan to our friends at the Bridge Club of Cen­ter City.

It seems delight­ed to be there. The cen­ter of atten­tion. The place where peo­ple are wel­comed and attend­ed to. It feels right at home.
I’m glad I can always vis­it my old friend there.