Apples

photo: Ivan Makarov via Flickr

Here's a poem I wrote as I approached my 40th bday this summer. I just uncovered it on my laptop's desktop:

When I was young
my skin was taut.
My flesh was crisp
and full of come
and the air smelled of fucking
Apples.

I pulled against the stem and felt it give
and for a moment gravity was on my side
And then it wasn't.

Better this than this :)

taking pictures

photo via larryncelia on Flickr

I just found out the other day that this photo from Flickr was used in a post on BoingBoing, following a post on a site called Neatorama about the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum. These links caused that photo to become my 3rd most popular (which isn't saying much) over the summer, and I had no idea why until I discovered the stats page on Flickr.

It's cool to have one of my photos be part of the whole web 2.0 experience, and I realized I also have other Flickr photos being used elsewhere on the web: one at an Apartment Therapy spinoff called the Kitchn and a couple at one time on Schmap. Considering how easily I pull photos off Flickr when I need something for RiceDaddies, it would be no surprise to learn that everyone posting photos online has had one used somewhere else on the web (even those of us who don't have compromising photos on myspace).

recession proof

Some going-out-of-business shopping at the local Mervyn's netted these three frames, whch self-assembled into something of an art piece once I got them home:

triptych: "recession proof": 3 panels with aluminum frame, each 4ft x 4ft. Frame 1 depicts retail graphic art from Mervyn's, the defunct department store. Frame 2 depicts a blank graphic panel. Frame 3 is void of content.

price: $1500

Shown as installed at the artist's residence.

As featured on Flickr, in the Economic Clusterf*ck of 2008

Play time!

Something interesting and exciting to share:

A concept I've done for an internal design provocation / project made it's first prototypical foray out into the world last night. It took a ride with passengers on a Northbound Caltrain, thanks to a couple of fellow designers with more cohones than me: Ted Howes and Adam Vollmer.

The design project is challenging ourselves to create concepts around the subject of time. This particular concept began with a question: What would happen if we gave away a thousand hours of play, ten minutes at a time?

As Adam tells it, the experiment / prototype / experience left some people confused and some people delighted. Apparently, Adam and Ted even got some cookies out of the deal!

The story's made it onto Tim Brown's Design Thinking blog, and hopefully there will be more to tell in the weeks to come!

Be on the lookout for a roll of orange tickets, with a little bit of timely magic in them. In the meantime, if you're feeling stressed, consider this a gift of 10 minutes to drop your load and go play.

Sleep tight

photo: the day after, headed to school, plus our cabinets came in, plus its trash day....

(originally posted over at Rice Daddies, where only the coolest daddies hang out)

Shhh, it's the last night of summer and the kids are in bed.

Princess Pony is asleep, her thumb in her mouth. Tomorrow she’ll be in first grade. She’s out like a light, always calm in the face of new adventures. It helps that she knows her new teacher from when her big brother was in that class.

Rabbit Dragon is still awake, rolling around in my bed. He’s nervous about his new third grade class. “Daddy,” he realizes, snuggled in my blankets, “in cursive I know all the lower case letters but not the upper case ones!” I tell him not to worry; he’s got a whole year of third grade ahead of him.

Mrs. Thisislarry is in the Philippines this week on business, and she’s the one with the good to-do lists. I’m more of a ‘visualize what you’ll be wearing today’ kind of guy lately, so I’ve got to think a bit: backpacks? Check. Sweatshirts? Hmmmm. Lunch? I’ll make it tomorrow. Thank goodness the kids are older and more resilient. If I forget to pack the right Quaker Oats bar I’ll get a dirty look tomorrow, but no meltdowns.

It’s the last night of summer. Forget what the calendar says, tomorrow the kids are back in school, and that means summer is over.

Goodbye daily drop-offs and pickups at day-camps with funny names like Galileo and Jefunira. Hello drops-offs and pick-ups at good ol’ Palo Verde.

Goodbye homemade lunches of baloney, fruit and shelf-stable chocolate milk. Hello homemade lunches of baloney, fruit, and shelf-stable chocolate milk. Plus a snack.

Goodbye bad influences from unfamiliar older kids at Y camp. Hello bad influences from renowned troublemakers at after-school kids’ club.

Goodbye teeth-gnashing about “did I pick the right camps for the kids this summer? Who are these counselors?” Hello teeth-gnashing about “how’s the third grade class looking this year? Who’s this teacher?”

Tomorrow, we’re up early, got to make sure Princess and Dragon are full of waffles and milk before we all walk to the big day, see parents I’ve not seen since June, trade quick vacation stories and remark about how much the kids have grown, and don’t the kinders look smaller every year.

But for now, it’s just me awake in the house, for the last few hours of the last night of summer. Daddy duties done for another day.

Shhhh.