new shoes

The Hacker Holiday party is tonight. It's my first so I'm excited. I'm wearing a dress Rania gave me a few months ago with these Taryn Rose shoes I got at Nordstrom Rack for a steal. We shall see how my feet hold up in them. I'm bringing some boots as back up. Pics to come later.

Mayo Hotel

I spent Friday-Monday in Tulsa this last weekend. John and Macy gave me a tour of the newly renovated Mayo Hotel and Condos. Macy's family owns and runs the historic hotel in downtown Tulsa. It has turned out so beautifully. These are just a few photos of some of my favorite parts.

Bonobo tonight at Neumos

a few months ago a friend of my sisters asked me to update his iPod off my computer. On his travels to Panama he discovered this band from what he downloaded off my computer. Since I have way more music then I could ever listen to (102G and getting larger) I was so happy to find them. Going to see him and a live band tonight at Neumos. I'm excited because it's a venue I haven't been to yet and it's only 4 blocks from my house!

Dear Seattle Weather,

When I first moved to Seattle, everyone was always constantly warning me about how gloomy the winters are. How I was going to be unprepared etc. It wasn't TOO bad, I got through it and didn't get depressed. The one week per summer that I have spent here up to this point couldn't have prepared me for a whole summer here. I just can't believe how beautiful it is, everytime I look out my window to Elliot Bay and the Olympics it just kills me. PLUS it isn't lost on the people that live here, they treat every nice weather day as
a gift.

no TV

For someone who doesn't have cable at home. I've managed to get myself addicted to two shows lately. I think I'm always late to getting into a show because I prefer the instant gratification of seeing an entire series at once.



The first one is Long Way Round. It's about 7 episode series about the 19,000-mile (31,000 km) journey of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman from London to New York on motorcycles. They travel eastward through Europe and Asia, flew to Alaska and continued by road from there to New York. After hearing about it from my copywriter here at work I looked it up at the Seattle Public Library, reserved it then waited patiently for it to come in. It's so great! My favorite is their ride on The Road of Bones in Siberia. Sulzer pointed out last week that there's a new one with them in Africa. It's next on my list.



The Wire. I heard it was fantastic when it first started. Then my friend Jen rented it just before she moved to Colorado. She left it with me to watch on the condition that I return it for her. I'm totally addicted. I love how smart the drug dealers are and how even the "scum" of Baltimore have principals.

Marc Johns

This drawing makes me laugh. I wish it was for sale in print form. All of his stuff is really great. marcjohns.com

new plants

I've had these little pots for years and have never used them. I know where I bought them even, Oasis in Stillwater. So 5 years + is how long they've sat on a shelf somewere. My mom has a TON of different succulent plants. So I cut off some babies and planted them a last week. I'm sure they'll outgrow their pots in no time.

market flowers

My new favorite thing to do is go down to the Market on a Monday or a Friday after work and get a nice big bunch of flowers. This bunch was only $10!! I think prices go down toward the end of the day if flowers are left over.

Session Beer Packaging

I saw this at Madison Market a few days ago. I just love it.

Andrew Wyeth

I've loved this artist for a while now. These posters have just gone up all around Seattle. Wyeth is an American artist and one of my favorites to see in a collection at a museum. Modern art museums have a ton of abstract work in their collections. For me, Wyeth has always been a nice break from that. My favorite piece "Christina's World" by him is pictured below.



Seattle Art Museum has just hung a small exhibition of some of his finest paintings. Seven great Wyeth paintings from private collections, otherwise never on public view. Next Friday I'm going to see a documentary about Wyeth at SAM. I'm not sure if my favorite is among the paintings, but I've seen it before at MOMA in NYC. I'm very excited about seeing more of his work.

Rock On!

Here is my first, of hopefully many sellable projects. I created this design for a baby onesie for baby Amira (my cousin Laura's new little girl, who I got to meet last weekend) and baby Josiah (my friend Lizzie and Josiah's new son). I used silver ink and printed them on black. They were a big hit with the Braddocks when I gave it to them on Saturday. I sent one to Lizzie and Jo last week. I plan on creating more so place your orders today :)

V and I in Costa Maya

Red shoes

As an ode to Kathy and her blog, I've decided to write about shoes. Ones I just bought online from Target. Their wicked comfy and affordable. I just love them. No, I didn't see Eddie Vedder or his wife at Target. :( Maybe next time.

Post Vacation update

I FINALLY just finished editing all the photos from the trip. You can view them here flickr, I haven't captioned all of them, but you'll get the idea.

Tomorrow night Missy, Rachel and I are going to Andrew Bird. I seriously can't wait. Just this weekend I've been listening to Armchair Apocrypha more in depth. I so in love with it. I also can't stop listening to "People Got Lotta Nerve" off the new Neko Case album and a song called "Not Fair" off Lily Allen's new album. I know they are soooo different but I love them equally.

Thursday night I am volunteering for the AIGA show here in Seattle. I'm new to the scene so it will be fun seeing how another creative club organizes and what their dynamic is like. I wonder if I'll be thinking..."that woman is the Libby Bender of Seattle or that guy is the John Amatucci of the Northwest...". I was once an outsider in Tulsa and found my home with ADCT pretty quickly. I know the formula (volunteer for everything until they depend on you) so I bet I can do it again.

Broken Social Scene

I got to see one of my favorite bands last night. Broken Social Scene is a larger band then I thought. In this instance, like with alot of bands I listen to, I had no idea what they looked like before the concert. These Canadians were older then I thought they were.

The concert was at Showbox Sodo and was sold out. I've been to this venue once before to see The Kooks. I have to say the acoustics totally stink and the layout sucks even more. But unlike my previous experience, I really loved it this time. Maybe it was the band. They were very talkative, commented about our new presidential success, and even gave advice about curfews. Overall they were in a great mood and totally rocked. They played all my favorite songs including "Anthem for a Sixteen Year Old Girl", "Stars and Sons" and "Looks Just Like The Sun". They had Lisa Lobsinger as the female singer. Many women have taken turns with the band including Lesile Feist (Feist), Emily Haines (Metric) and Amy Milan(Stars).

So I tried using my new Flip to record a few songs. It was really easy to keep pretty steady, I just couldn't dance. But, tall people kept getting in the way :(

First Flip Video

I took this on my way to work the other day...I hope to post little videos on here more often. I'll try to be diligent over my trip to Mexico.

FLIP!

In preparation for my trip to Mexico on Saturday, I bought this. It's called a Flip and its a really light weight and easy to use camcorder for sharing video on the internet. I've played around with it just a little. First thing I noticed is that I love how well it performs in low light. But I DO NOT like the software that comes with it. It is a POS and very pro AOL. Who even uses AOL anymore, that's what I want to know. I don't even see those cheesy cds in the mail anymore. Why? Because who in the world still uses dial up?

Anyway. Back on the subject. I'm going to test it tonight at the concert I'm going to, Broken Social Scene, here in Seattle. I hope that it does better then my little Nikon S2. I got that little Nikon from John 3 years ago. It's so out of date, but the little guys been a trooper. hasn't ever given me any issues. Come to think of it, I think it was one of my first posts on this blog :)

Sunny Day Seattle

I just posted a bunch of photos I took at Seattle Center on a sunny day a few weekends ago. Enjoy.

Ice sledding video from my dad in Oklahoma

What's so funny about this video is that my family had no idea Maggie the English Bulldog would act that way when they were sledding down the driveway.

Pink Elephant Car Wash

Tonight will be my second class in screen printing. This is the image I'm working on. It's a a sign for a car wash in downtown Seattle. I love the sign. I hope the print turns out as well as my mock up.

fun with kitchen utensils

First print done!

My first screen print done! Here they are on the drying rack. I'm in love with it. It's looks like something that would be fun to put in a child's room. It's definitely not perfect, but that's no biggie. I'm somewhat obsessed with the ocean since moving to Seattle, seems fitting.

Screen Printing Class

I started a printmaking class last night at Pratt. It's the first time I've taken one since 2002. Oh printmaking, how I've missed you! I know realize what was missing from my life for the past 7 years. The class was full at 12 people. Mostly female. I went into the class thinking surely it would take the whole 4 hour class to cover the basics of screen printing. I was pleasantly mistaken. We talked about an hour then she let us loose to do whatever. So I came up with a very quick design. The process is cutting a pattern in a sheet of newsprint then taping it to the screen. Very quick and easy with fast results. So I finished my first screen by 9pm then cleaned up for the evening. The class also gets studio time all day Friday as part of the class fee. So I'll be finishing the print up by Friday evening and will post the finished product then.

Poppy

My friends Diana, Lisa and I went to Poppy to try it out. It's a pretty new restaurant located at the end of Broadway on Capitol Hill. Plus the Seattle Times recently gave it a good review. My first impression was BRIGHT! This restaurant is incredibly bright with the orange and yellow tables and blonde colored wood everywhere. It didn't really bother me but I do prefer darker lighting. We met about 6 and it wasn't too busy. Then as I sat down the server informed me that all alcohol was 50% off in celebration of the new president. We also ordered food off the bar menu my favorite was the eggplant fries with honey and sea salt. Yummm.

Andew Bird

A friend gave me a copy of Noble Beasts a few weeks before it's release. Based on his new album, Jen, Missy and I bought tix to see him at The Moore Theater here in Seattle on Feb 23rd. I've been there once before to see Fleet Foxes. Jen is particularly excited since she's never been.

Slumdog Millionaire

Missy, Jen and I went and saw SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE at The Harvard Exit Theater here in Seattle last week. It's a story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"

We absolutely loved it. First off, I adore almost any movie set in India or that depicts Indian people. It was a fantastic story about 2 brothers surviving under the most bleak circumstances. The love story is epic and there isn't alot of subtitles if that bugs any of you. The soundtrack kicks ass, Indian music of course, but they included a few MIA songs which was genius. It was like MIA, who wrote those songs years ago, had written them especially for this movie. Overall this is the best movie I have seen in over a year. If it is playing near you, go.

Floods

I wish it would stop raining! I got soaked between my work and Marcos tonight. I only had 6 blocks and I got totally soaked! My dad called from OK while watching The Weather Channel (his favorite channel, it's his favorite reality show) and said there was flooding and I-5 was closed to the south and north. So basically everyone in Seattle is stuck here!

As a side note, I think both my mother and my father missed their calling as weather forecasters. If I'm in WA my dad calls me from OK to warn me about the weather in WA, if I'm in OK my mother in WA calls me about the weather in OK. In the TEN years my mother has lived in Washington, she has called me during every tornado warning, her timing is uncanny she managed to call just when the sirens were going off.

The end is in sight, Friday starts a week of dry weather and even 5 straight days of sun (hopefully)!

$5.98

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by rrgelder0129.

The other day I was headed to work and I stopped into an asian gift shop. I was looking around at dishes, cookware and all kinds of strange items when I came across these dolls. A wedding doll set. Which is normal enough. But they each have a small child next to them, they look about 8 years old are so. So who are these children? Are the doll children from a previous marriage or relationship? Are they the brides children or the grooms? Or maybe they each have a child from a previous marriage. How many times have these dolls been married before? How did they meet? Dollieharmony.com? And the biggest question of all, who makes cakes that put on a light show and play music and why didn't Kathy get one for her wedding? Edible or not, seems like a no brainer. I think asian doll manufacturers must be more socially accepting of alternative versions of the typical family unit then the ones I grew up with. Plus they make toy wedding cakes with lights and music!