T- Day.

Happy Turkey Day. I hope yours was a good one.

I had a lovely day with the family.
All done.


Cheers.

Blackbird Online.

Congrats go out to Blackbird in Seattle for their new online shop. Check it out when you get a chance.

Open the Book.

As you might have heard I had lost my 9-5 back in July and recently was blessed with a job opportunity to start a new line for O'Neill... 2 Weeks later and we found ourselves back in the same boat but without a paddle. They powers that be decided now was not a good time to start something new so they put the project on hold... indefinitely.
Well we have been carving a new paddle from drift wood that happened to bump into our boat as we've been drifting along in the muddy currents of life. This new paddle, or plan if you will, is something that I have been putting off for a long time and I think the time is right to go back to school. So I have started the application process to go to BYU. If my 18 year old self knew that when he got to be this age that he would be trying to get into BYU I am sure he would just laugh and say 'yea right'.
(I like this old logo that they used from 1969 till 1998 Why do people fell like things need to be new all of the time???)

But like I mentioned in the last post that when we get older our priorities change. I am really excited to go to school! A chance to get in and experiment and really find, develop and build on my own style and try a few new things and explore options that I would not be able to do in the fulltime work place. It is not going to be easy with the wife and two kids under the age of three to take care of but I think and hope that it will be worth it. Now I just need to get in and get accepted to the program that I am trying to do. Lets turn that page of life.

I Have Been Tagged.

A little while back I was tagged by Becka and posted directly to her comments. Well I was tagged again. This time I want to do it a little different so check out the following:
seven little known facts about me...

1) I love the word 'Amphibian'. Not sure why, one day I was telling my boys about frogs and said the word and thought 'I like this word'.
2) My favorite flower is an Orchid. But you say there are over 25,000 known species of Orchids which one?... All of them. I have purchased many for the wife over the years and secretly I was doing it for myself. Thought I have still never been able to get them to re-bloom.

3) In high school I hated science and any class that I was forced to take, along with math. (though one of my favorite teachers was a science teacher???) Recently science has become very interesting to me, especially Botany. Strange how as we get older our interest and priorities change.

4) I want to own a farm. A few chickens, a couple of horses and cows, ducks and sheep. But of course the barn has to be set up as my design studio with fabric, ink, sewing machines, and place to just make messes and build things.

5) My great great uncle is Robert Leroy Parker aka. Butch Cassidy. When I was young I asked if I could have the middle name Leroy. I wanted to be an outlaw in the wild west.

6) I hope to one day write and illustrate a book. Not sure what about but I want to do it.
7) I have seasonal depression as in I need change of seasons (why LA is such a crap place to live no seasons) Autumn and Winter are my favorite time of the year.
All right there you have it.
I am suppose to pass this on but I will just let that slide.

Video goods.

A tour of FSC in NYC


Obsessiveness of the Barking Irons dudes.

The Potting of Art.

A while back while enjoying the posts of Mr. Lord Whimsy he had made mention and shared with all the image of a stack of planting pots at his local nursery. While I was at my local nursery perusing around seeing what kind of mischief I could find I ended up in the section of planting pots and whipped out the ol' Nikon and had a go at it myself taking my own creative license to play. Here is what I came home with.

Keep Learning.

Louis Agassiz, 1807-1873

I really like this story and thought I would share it. A true inspiration!

Keep learning. Where to discover your interest and how to amass relevant information are illustrated in the story of an obscure spinster woman who insisted that she never had a chance. She muttered these words to Dr. Louis Agassiz, distinguished naturalist, after one of his lectures in London. In response to her complaint, he replied: “Do you say, madam, you never had a chance? What do you do?”

“I am single and help my sister run a boardinghouse.”

“What do you do?” he asked.

“I skin potatoes and chop onions.”

He said, “Madam, where do you sit during these interesting but homely duties?”

“On the bottom step of the kitchen stairs.”

“Where do your feet rest?”

“On the glazed brick.”

“What is glazed brick?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

He said, “How long have you been sitting there?”

She said, “Fifteen years.”

“Madam, here is my personal card,” said Dr. Agassiz. “Would you kindly write me a letter concerning the nature of a glazed brick?”

She took him seriously. She went home and explored the dictionary and discovered that a brick was a piece of baked clay. That definition seemed too simple to send to Dr. Agassiz, so after the dishes were washed, she went to the library and in an encyclopedia read that a glazed brick is vitrified kaolin and hydrous aluminum silicate. She didn’t know what that meant, but she was curious and found out. She took the word vitrified and read all she could find about it. Then she visited museums. She moved out of the basement of her life and into a new world on the wings of vitrified. And having started, she took the word hydrous, studied geology, and went back in her studies to the time when God started the world and laid the clay beds. One afternoon she went to a brickyard, where she found the history of more than 120 kinds of bricks and tiles, and why there have to be so many. Then she sat down and wrote thirty-six pages on the subject of glazed brick and tile.

Back came the letter from Dr. Agassiz: “Dear Madam, this is the best article I have ever seen on the subject. If you will kindly change the three words marked with asterisks, I will have it published and pay you for it.”

A short time later there came a letter that brought $250, and penciled on the bottom of this letter was this query: “What was under those bricks?” She had learned the value of time and answered with a single word: “Ants.” He wrote back and said, “Tell me about the ants.”

She began to study ants. She found there were between eighteen hundred and twenty-five hundred different kinds. There are ants so tiny you could put three head-to-head on a pin and have standing room left over for other ants; ants an inch long that march in solid armies half a mile wide, driving everything ahead of them; ants that are blind; ants that get wings on the afternoon of the day they die; ants that build anthills so tiny that you can cover one with a lady’s silver thimble; peasant ants that keep cows to milk, and then deliver the fresh milk to the apartment house of the aristocrat ants of the neighborhood.

After wide reading, much microscopic work, and deep study, the spinster sat down and wrote Dr. Agassiz 360 pages on the subject. He published the book and sent her the money, and she went to visit all the lands of her dreams on the proceeds of her work.

Now, as you hear this story, do you feel acutely that all of us are sitting with our feet on pieces of vitrified kaolin and hydrous aluminum silicate—with ants under them? Lord Chesterton answers: “There are no uninteresting things; there are only uninterested people.”

Keep learning.

(Excerpt from a talk By Elder Marion D. Hanks, July, 1971. Ensign)

Elder Richard L. Evans taught: “There are some things you can give another person, and some things you cannot give him, except as he is willing to reach out and take them, and pay the price of making them a part of himself. This principle applies to studying, to developing talents, to absorbing knowledge, to acquiring skills, and to the learning of all the lessons of life” (Richard Evans’ Quote Book [1971], 74).

A Little FYI

Check it out here.

Oddly Wonderful.

While researching for ideas on the 'ol net machine I have stumbled upon a young foto slave, Anja Niemi, who's work is very wonderful and slightly disturbing but in a very odd and lovely way. Please find inspiration.

The Young Knifes

Just found this here band and quite enjoy their sound and their style. Enjoy.

Turn Tail


Up All Night