Entry #67: Pavement Kicks & The Smell of New Leather

These babies will be hittin' the streets, soon, son, soon!

These boots were made by hand (handmade, writing is hard today) by a cobbler! How cool is that? Super cool. Everything, from the mold to the soles and the wood is carved, cut, sewn, stapled, & polished by hand. Intimacy, in a pair of shoes before they are broken into, is rather hard to come by. It's the Introduction into the American Life that many immigrants receive upon arrival on the shores of Mother Liberty.

Brand Name: Marco Locos
Retail: $300
Reason: "We can't compete against mass production and we won't anytime soon."
Smells Like New Leather & Your Favorite Dance Move






In other news, The Mai Shi are absolutely amazing.

From their Myspace website:
...
"This is our story, and we invite you to come along. It's about self-improvement and trying to live life at the top of your lungs, living life rightly, respecting others, making something you're proud of, and trying to sort out all the static and figuring out what matters. It's about trying to forge that third way, that way everyone said it couldn't be done. We do this in basements and backyards and in fancy clubs we don't even feel comfortable in. We do this in living rooms and bathrooms and bedrooms and wherever the sound sounds best. We do this with ten dollar keyboards and Olvera Street guitars and with light-reactive synths we built ourselves. We do this with broken cymbals and busted speakers. We do this the first thing when we wake up. We do this after a hard day at work, when it's the only solace and life seems to be a constant source of frustration. We do this on weekends. We do this all the time."

The above is something akin to the rings formed around drops of holy water and may even be a psalm for life and living.

Entry #66: Interior Cavities & Designer in Training

My new job at an interior framing architecture company is rather interesting. I'm learning a lot about borrowed lites (windows, lights spelled "lites") and Sidelites. I just do pricing and drawings, but o mi, o my, architecture makes me swoon with delicious dreams.

My favorite building is actually Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Perhaps it's because it is located on the fertile soils of my roots, but the trees into concrete faces that seem to cuuuuurve and smile or frown with misery while overlooking the water or war scene... it just whispers zen and lyrical stories galore.



via: Wood s Lot



via: Travel Adventures

Entry #65: Richard Sweeney Models Paper Beautifully

From his Flickr Post:
I use paper modelling as a means to generate form.



Flickr website

Entry #64: Model Turned Photographer, Ellen is Amazing

Ellen von Unwerth is an amazing photographer who gets down and dirty with her photographs.

"Von Unwerth seems less of an auteur directing her subjects than a co-conspirator who intimately knows the inner lives of these girls who want to have fun."--American Photo



"Von Unwerth brings an energetic femininity to fashion photography--call it girl power. The models in her pictures seem to have real identities, and the photos often convey a sexuality without reducing the subjects to sex objects."--American Photo









I adore these collections:
Kate Moss
Brad Pitt

(All of the photos were taken from this site)

Hopefully, the wikipedia on von Unwerth will get updated with more info.

Entry #63: A table for hire and the picture you did not take.

A project my brother sent me that he was commissioned to do a couple of years ago. It gives a good idea about the design process from paper to product.


The untaken picture is:
This is a picture I did not take of an airborne fistful of pennies, flung from the open window of a limosine, idling on deserted 7th Avenue, early on a warm May morning in Manhattan.

Unphotographable Website

Entry #62: A Mil Jugos Reminder

A thousand juices! Mil Jugos is a cute little Venezuelan eatery in downtown Santa Ana's Arts District... I miss it dearly (I do! I do!)

I have to drive back to Orange County today to pick up the long awaited yet-to-be-named shoes. Pictures to come- from concept to print to product.



Mil Jugos
318 W. 5th Street
(between Broadway and Ross)
Santa Ana 714 836-4601
Monday - Friday 10AM - 5PM
Saturday 10:30AM - 5PM

To try: Arepas! Cachapas!
Juice: Papaya & kiwi = yummy.

Entry #61: A Metro We Will Go!

I took the Metro today (the first time cross cities!) and got VERY LOST. "NE corner" what?! The $3 all day pass was well worth it...as a woman's intuition does not exist in the realm of directions. I need a compass...I actually had a compass ring at one point.



(link to Individual Icons) : (Discovered on Fabulist)

In all that mayhem, I didn't pick up a Very Important Phone-call.

Whatever the deal, lots of business people (who park & ride) and it was rather interesting.

I spoke to a couple and the general reasoning was:
downtown LA is very hard to drive into- taking the metro (from LB like me!) is safe and very practical.

I also rollerbladed into work. ta-da!

Entry #60: Discipline in Thought and the Pursuit of Simplicity

Cool paper on Delay Insensitive Codes. (note: PDF)

MathMeth's Mission Statement, as stated on their website:
We are of the opinion that thinking is a skill that may be developed like any other. This website is devoted to developing our thinking skills. We choose mathematics as a medium through which to conduct this development. We make this choice because mathematical concepts are completely clear and precise, and hence provide the simplest sort of problems to work with.

that last sentence is a tough pill.

Will all this mathematical thinking lend to better communications/social skills? Probably not... for that, I'd turn to Rawl's Theory of Reflective Equilibrium.

Whatever.

The pursuit of simplicity won't lead to cool stuff like this:


The Color of the Year for 2007, according to Pantone.



Fitting, with the War on Terror and Darfur Genocide currently going on. Word on the street is that number 1 is no longer referring to our invasion as the War on Terror?

Entry #59: Miss Sixty Hotel Chain

Blackbook magazine had a Miss Sixty hotel chain ad in it a few months ago. Miss Sixty = amazing (favorite?) jeans & their hotel chain is off the charts.







You can find more images at the website: http://www.sixtyhotel.com/

Entry #58: G-sky, not to be confused with Entry #57

Hmmm...

"The 1st Annual G-Sky Training Seminar is designed to give you, the prospective Sales Representative or Distributor of G-Sky products, a crash-course in designing, quoting, installing, and recommending Green Roof and Wall systems to your clients. Through a blend of instructional seminars and hands-on training, you'll leave this Retreat with the tools you need to capitalize on this tremendous growth industry in North America."

The itinerary of events can be found here.

It's in Canada. I think I'm going to go! I just wanna know how to plan these suckaz!

UPDATE: I signed up and I'm going + 1.

Entry #57: Garden in the Sky

LOVE, as edited from The New Otani Hotel & Garden.

The half-acre rooftop garden on the third floor of the Otani Hotel & Garden in dowtown Los Angeles is a miniature version of the historic 400 year-old ten-acre garden in the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo.

According to the website, the garden utilizes the seven priciples of Zen: asymmetry, simplicity, naturalness, calmness, austerity, subtlety and spirituality.

In theory, a Japanese garden should represent the universe and its elements, The New Otani gardens are traditional "strolling gardens" and its path not just a functional entry into the garden, but a separation with each step signifying a release from the realities of work and worry.

An important classic technique in Japanese landscape architecture is called "shakkei" (or borrowed landscape) in incorporating surrounding and/or distant landscapes into a garden's panorama. The huge red rocks placed carefully throughout the garden are part of the priceless rock collection of the late Yonetaro Otani, founder of the New Otani Company. These precious rosy rocks are found on the Japanese island of Sado in central Japan. In a Japanese garden, such a rock may symbolize a mountain or a continent, while a palette of combed sand might be an ocean.

Click on the picture below for the map.



p.s. I can't wait to live downtown!

Entry #56: Removing Space to make Place

I spent a couple of hours at MIT’s Rooftop Garden at Hotel @ MIT and, although I appreciated the fact that there was a rooftop garden (atop a parking lot structure), I was a little disappointed (i.e. very).

It reminded me of tracked housing.

There are two different types of green roofs: The first is meant to be visited, while the other is geared towards lowering temperatures and consist of selecting plants that will accomplish this the most = less play time. If the MIT rooftop is going to be that boring (and very poor layout, btw), they should just convert it to a green roof as opposed to a rooftop garden. But I guess there is aesthetics in eating atop a roof to look at the skyline.

Anyways, this inspiring article in the Long Beach Press Telegram and featured in the New York Times got me super excited.

Don't Mow this 'Lawn': Family Replaces Lakewood Lawn with Fruit, Vegetables.

Highlight:
Stuck in her vegetable patch is this message: "The empty front lawn requiring mowing, watering and weeding previously on this location has been removed."

I absolutely LOVE that someone from my middle school (Go Bancroft!) came up with this and actually put it into action? Amazing! I have hope for our native plant garden in the front yard. We have a well stocked vegetable and rose garden in the back yard already…

Entry #55: Predictions and Plans

Interesting website- predict the future!

I predict:
John Edwards will win the primary (I'm rooting for Hillary)
Mitt Romney will win the GOP version (maybe)
and the winner = Democratic Party!

Speaking of Planning, starting Monday, I will be giving the Metro a try, yaaay!
You can plan your own Metro Adventure at Trip Planner.

From: WILLOW STATION Lv: 06:13AM
To: VERNON STATION Ar: 06:40AM
Use Transfer or Media , Monthly Pass: $52.00, (EZ Pass accepted)
Ride Metro Bus 105 (DISTRICT-ATLANTIC) heading east
From: VERNON AV/LONG BEACH AV WEST(SW corner) Lv: 06:49AM
To: PACIFIC/SANTA FE(SE corner) Ar: 06:53AM
Pay $1.25, Monthly Pass: $52.00, (EZ Pass accepted)

According to the website:
Total cash fare = $2.65
Trip time is about 53 minutes.
Trip distance is about 16.42 miles.
*Driving cost: is about $9.23 (based on AAA's formula at 56.2 cents/mile)

Carbon Footprint = ?? Currently I am at about 19/day JUST FOR DRIVING. I will reduce it to 10/day by using the train. yay!

Entry #54: Music Video, On Location

This past weekend was a BUSY one! Not only was it cinco de mayo (I found myself at a tequila bar that was absolutely kitsch and fabulous minus the $600 tab), but it was the weekend of the music video shoot.
Hair & Makeup


Part of Camera Crew (from Japan)


The girls in the video minus actual country singer... the girl at the front reminds me of a young Jennifer Connelly!


Day 2: On location @ the beach

Entry #53: Metal Arts Exhibit!

Ooo, a post by Natural Histories reminded me of the Emerging Voices Exhibit at Chemers Gallery.



EMERGING VOICES EXHIBIT, featuring variety of unique metal works from April 28th – May 12th, 2007. This juried exhibit is sponsored by the Metal Arts Society of Southern California also known as MASSC.

The artists selected for this exhibit are:

Mary-Austin Bame
Shirley Chu
Erin Elowe
Xochilt Figueroa
Dha-Mee Hahn
Bettina Karallus
Cheryl Lommatsch
Tara Magboo
Nelly Nye
Amparo Ochoa
Robert Osborn
Laura Prieto-Valesco
Diane Weimer
Julie Williams
Aaron Willoughby

Opening & Artist Reception, Saturday, April 28, 2007 at Chemers Gallery from 5:30 – 8:30 PM.

CHEMERS GALLERY is located at 17300 Seventeenth Street, Ste G, Tustin, California 92780, Phone 714 731-5432

To learn more about MASSC go to their website at www.massconline.com

In other news, Cabinet Magazine updated their website today, according to the magic of RSS. This is probably my favorite art magazine, as it is the product of really good writing and amazing research.

Entry #52: Office Space

Consulting project number 1 is to redo the design + layout of an environmental company, located inside of a historical bank. I want to expose some brick walls, install cool partitions, and install track lighting!

I’ve been looking at the red-dot design award’s website to get some ideas, but I think I will be sticking to the tried and true Wilson Partitions for most of my partition needs.

The goal, as stated in my contract, is to:
Achieve a design + layout that is comfortable, eco-friendly, and will lend to a productive and lively work environment.

Design Trend- LED:


More Cool Lights:

Entry #51: Food Mile

Put simply, 'food miles' is a measure of how far food travels - from paddock to plate - and is an indication of how environmentally-friendly it is. Food freight - especially by air and road - consumes fuel and energy, and releases greenhouse pollution, affecting the global climate.

Read More
"Measuring Food By the Mile": How to measure food miles, as well as some of the results from the UK and the US. Some information about London's Food Mile campaign/bid.

Entry #50: Art Center Exhibit- Architecture and Technology for Intelligent Living

Open House: Architecture and Technology for Intelligent Living
Saturday April 14, 2007 - Sunday July 01, 2007
South Campus Wind Tunnel
950 S. Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91105


Seoul Commune 2026 by Mass Studies

I'm such a big fan of this school and their offerings. The Architecture and Technology for Intelligent Living exhibit is from April 14 – July 1, 2007. The exhibit explores the technologies and environmental concerns driving these homes of the future.

From the website:

"Open House: Architecture and Technology for Intelligent Living," jointly produced by Art Center and Vitra Design Museum of Germany, is a highly anticipated exhibition that will envision the house of the future as a place for new spatial experiences, new systems of sustainability, and new sensory enhancements. Going beyond gadgets, "Open House" will investigate how recent technologies can change—and improve—future living and lifestyles.

To form the nexus of the "Open House" exhibition, nearly 100 teams of emerging designers whose work focuses on technology and domestic architecture were invited to submit new designs that offer real-life solutions that incorporate the concepts of connectivity, well-being, flexibility and sustainability. Ten design teams were ultimately selected from the United States, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Mexico and models of their visionary projects will offer designs for intelligent houses, proposals for intelligent living, and examples of intelligent materials.



Future House by Matti Suuronen

Relevant Links:
Event Website
Pasadena Star News Article
Gallery of Some Works
Art Center

Entry #49: Extracting Video From the Brain- Mind Reading?

I had a dream about seeing images from the brain of a dead person and googled the mess to find the following study that was able to reconstruct images seen by a cat using neuronal systems/circuits and a mathematical formula. The above is what they put together. Moral of the story is that dreams lie in the realm of the real.


Professor Garrett B. Stanley of Harvard University writes in a 1999 Neuroscience article,

"A major challenge in studying sensory processing is to understand the meaning of the neural messages encoded in the spiking activity of neurons. From the recorded responses in a sensory circuit, what information can we extract about the outside world? Here we used a linear decoding technique to reconstruct spatiotemporal visual inputs from ensemble responses in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of the cat. From the activity of 177 cells, we have reconstructed natural scenes with recognizable moving objects. The quality of reconstruction depends on the number of cells. For each point in space, the quality of reconstruction begins to saturate at six to eight pairs of on and off cells, approaching the estimated coverage factor in the LGN of the cat. Thus, complex visual inputs can be reconstructed with a simple decoding algorithm, and these analyses provide a basis for understanding ensemble coding in the early visual pathway."

The PDF of the article/study can be found here.

I also ran across a message board, and there was a quick link to this BBC article, "Computer uses cat's brain to see," regarding the study.

In other NEWS, The Library of Congress HAS A BLOG (!!) called "Library of Congress Blog, Light and liberty go together."

Entry #48: Ways in Which Nonverbal Messages Interact

I don't deserve all this nonverbal communication given to me by el amor de mi vida.

Speaking of hearts, I googled that mess and came across this medical university website and received a quick dose of dopamine with the image below.



I recently put in my two weeks notice, with thoughts of Africa dancing in my head. Fortunately, the environmental company I work at, will be keeping me on as a consultant.