sweet jacket

Anyone who knows me knows that jackets are one of my favorite things. Here is an awesome one by Robert James that I really like.

photoshopping

I’ve decided to swim deeper into photoshop. It’s something that I’ve really enjoyed doing and have just sort of picked up and been interested in without trying. It’s time to try. Here’s a little something I created in about 15 mins while just messing around with new brushes this morning. The writing was inspired by my wife who’s middle name is dawn. 🙂

It makes me think of war time – maybe someone that’s wounded or knocked out and thinking of a poem during his private peace in the midst of the battle.

There will be more of these little creations to come. We’ll see where they take me. Or where I take them. …wait, who’s leading this thing?

a conversation with anne lamott 2007

anne lamott is one of my favorite authors. if you only have a few minutes then just skip to 4:00 and listen.

beer in stuffed animals

“Scottish brewery BrewDog has reclaimed the world record for the strongest beer in history with a 55% alcohol beer which it has named “The End of History.” Only 11 bottles will be available, and each bottle will come inside a stuffed animal – seven Stoats will be available at GBP500 and four grey squirrels at GBP700, making it also the most expensive beer in history. That’s USD$1000 a bottle!”

via gizmag

the rules of conversation – the daily dish | by andrew sullivan

A conversation, like dancing, has some rules, although I’ve never seen them stated anywhere. The objective of conversation is to entertain or inform the other person while not using up all of the talking time. A big part of how you entertain another person is by listening and giving your attention. Ideally, your own enjoyment from conversation comes from the other person doing his or her job of being interesting. If you are entertaining yourself at the other person’s expense, you’re doing it wrong.

You might think that everyone on earth understands what a conversation is and how to engage in one. My observation is that no more than a quarter of the population has that understanding.

I think of it as a friendly tennis match. There is no attempt to score a point or win a match. There is merely the enjoyment of each other’s company, an open-ended engagement that should and does lead nowhere, and an eagerness to play. This facet of behavior – playing – is in many ways, as I argue in Intimations Pursued, the highest expression of human freedom. It is also the highest expression of civility. We need more of it. And the blogosphere – at its best – achieves this.

via The Rules Of Conversation – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.

dreams

Been having some interesting dreams lately. …maybe someone’s hacking into my mind (Inception anyone?). Here’s the one from 2 nights ago.

I start out in a bar drinking with the other soccer teammates. We have the champion game tomorrow against a really tough team and after looking at a wall of posters of ourselves (which were actually soccer players in the Champions League) we decide to train and run all night so we’ll be ready for the game.

We all bolt out of the bar and start running. At night. In the snow. I move ahead of the pack and start to cross a pedestrian bridge. Two cocker spaniels with wings fly up to me. The first scares me so I hit it with a book on the head, but then end up petting them as the hover next to me.

I keep running and go into a building and up some stairs. I see a guy I know who’s sitting on the floor and reading saying he knows something about me as I run past. Looking for my room, I turn around and see 3 girls walking toward me. I ask if they know where my room is and they say yes, it’s upstairs. They say I always get drunk and think I’m in my room when I’m actually in their room. I have a flashback to sometime, I guess, when I was drunk in their room. The room is full of water and we’re swimming, and I’m with 4/5 ginormous turtles (their flippers are bigger than my body) who are treading water like a human with their heads sticking up and their mouths open showing their teeth (which are akin to a sea lion).

Then I wake.

renovate

I wouldn’t have guessed that I would be renovating residential houses at this point in my life, but I love it. We do really high quality work, everyone loves what they do and pride’s themselves in their work, and the clients always love the homes that we renovate. I’m learning a lot both in the office working on the design, architecture, and business end and in the field learning how things are done, mingling with people, and getting a good workout.

There is, however, a surly group of locals who are adamantly against what we do. They hate the designs, the materials, etc., and make it a personal issue. I think they have too much time on their hands and just despise change in general. If they could see the state the houses are in before (nearly falling over, vegetation growing over the house and sometimes inside it, poor previous additions sometimes without even wall studs!, etc.) then I think there would be less complaints about us restoring them.

Anyways, I love the idea of restoring things and decided to look up the word. Words fascinate me and this one is just one of the many. Here’s what Webster says:

Main Entry: ren·o·vate

Etymology: Latin renovatus, past participle of renovare, from re- + novare to make new, from novus new

1 : to restore to a former better state (as by cleaning, repairing, or rebuilding)

2 : to restore to life, vigor, or activity : revive <the church was renovated by a new ecumenical spirit>

I love that – “to restore life, vigor, or activity”. And I love that the sample sentence includes the church because renovating is such a Christian idea. As Christians, each of us has been renovated and made new. We were fallen sinners who were dead, but Christ came and renovated us – He restored life, vigor, and activity to us. This is what it means when Christ says that he came so that we may have life and have it to the fullest.

Things that are renovated have a history to them. There’s the first stage or design; then a metamorphosis changing it into something similar but different. Traditional that’s reinvented. I like the purity of things that have undergone the metamorphosis but don’t find them as interesting; and I’d argue that they don’t have as much history. Take a building, for example; or a city. If a city never renovated or changed anything then it would just be old. But the more it changes and is renovated and developed, the more it shows a snap-shot of that specific time throughout the complete timeline of the building. You can’t see how old something is unless you have something new to compare it to.

poem

This poem was written by my friend and recently published on Linebreak.

Jeepney to Anini-y

BY JOHN SCHELLHASE

We heard the fish there cursive through the coral,
That starfish prowl the boulders, that seaweed
would flay the salty diorama, and like a quarrel
dissolving, the shore-world would go to bed.
We heard the stars would paint a glassy mural
Across both sky and waves. We heard the thread
of each star’s light would weave into a laurel
that rests upon the island’s bowing head.

We’re folded in the jeep with chicken crates,
children, and ancient men with smiles like crusts.
I put my headphones in. The music greets
the stench and heat, like light a door its never
entered. The coastline gleams. Even the dust
is silent now. I want to live forever.

inception

With Christopher Nolan directing (who did the latest and greatest Batman movies), this is sure to follow suit. And ever since Leonardo DiCaprio was in Gangs of New York and The Departed, I think it’s okay for guys to like his movies.

the adventures of tbox and xbox

So I recently got an Xbox 360 from a good friend for a sweet deal. Having played video games while growing up, my only gaming lately (the past decade) has been from roommates’ consoles (so haven’t really played much in the past 2 years). It’s been fun researching games (hello again IGN) and here are some that I’m excited about. If you haven’t noticed, I tend to go toward the first person shooters — especially if they’re co-op games.

Halo: Reach

Release Date: September 14, 2010

.

.

.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Release Date: November 9, 2010

.

.

.

Fable 3

Release date: December 30, 2010

.

.

.

Bulletstorm

Release Date: February 22, 2011

.

.

.

Gears of War 3

Release Date: April 5, 2011

.

.

.

What games are you looking forward to?