Want To Watch

The Walking Dead

It's not often that I still wish I had a TV, but after learning of this new show on AMC I kind of wish I did. The Walking Dead is a new show that will be premiering Halloween night on AMC. I love the whole Zombie and post-apocalyptic theme. The only real problem is that good movies of this genre only come out every so often, and most times they are hit or miss. An series on AMC is really exciting because it opens up so many possibilities for the story line to build. I'm also glad to see that it's coming out on AMC which they seem to know what they are doing in the series department with Breaking Bad and Mad Men. I hope this series has some success, I'm looking forward to it.

Here is the official trailer for the show The Walking Dead.



Here is an amazing Opening Titles sequence that a fan created. Again this is not at all any official studio piece but just something a fan put together.

Watch This

The Day the World went Away

This is still one of my favorite songs/music videos of all time.

What I'm Up To

Lens Mods

I've been playing around again with lens modifications to fit onto my canon T1i. Last year I made a lens out of old projector lenses and used a canon body cap with a pin hole in it to attach the lenses. Now I decided to take one of the lenses from my vintage cameras and modify it to fit the T1i. I love using my film camera but I don't really like paying to have the picture developed. What gives the pictures from these cameras is typically the lens so I figured why not just git the lens to my digital camera. I took off the lens from my Argus C3 which is a 50mm f/3.5 which was made around 1940. I used another canon body cap and cut out a hole for the lens to slip inside. I then used some aluminum spacers from another dismantled lens to get the right distance between the lens and the sensor. The argus lens sits about 1/4 inch below the body cap. I have it set to where the focal range is 3 feet to infinity. Using the lens is much like using it on the Argus camera body. You adjust the focal range and aperture on the lens then control the iso and shutter speed with the camera. It's a fun little lens to shoot with, and it's actually surprising how great the pictures are with it.

Here is a slide show of picture I have taken with the lens as well as pictures of the lens itself. 

Also here are pictures of the homemade lens.

These are actually really cheap if you want to try and make one yourself. I picked up the Argus C3 with lens for around $5 and the body cap was around $3. The homemade lens was entirely made from parts I found in the trash.

Uwajimystery #16

Green Tea Aero

Well it's been a while since my last Uwajimystery, mostly because I've only been able to afford food that I can actually eat. This weeks uwajimystery is a candy that you usually can't buy in the US, Aero. I remember always getting aero whenever I went up to Canada and also when I was over in Europe. I'm not sure why it's not available more readily in the US. I guess because it's sort of a "light" candy bar, most Americans will have none of that. It is a great marketing ploy and must be a huge profit margin to sell a candy bar that is mostly air. I still like them even though they are mostly air. This particular Aero bar is a little different because it is green tea flavored, and of course being green tea flavored it had to be colored neon green to emphasize that point.

The Japanese seem to love packaging things because inside this large bag is 18 small individually wrapped aero bars.

As suspected the first smell I got when opening this package was of chocolate.

Even when cutting into it I don't really get a green tea smell. Taking the first bite gives that memorable melting fizzle popping feeling of the bubbles but still I don't get any green tea, the chocolate just over powers everything. This is a great little candy, very light and addictive.

Bells

Bell Bonanza

Last Thursday and Friday I was helping out Lead Pencil Studio take down their temporary bell instillation at Seattle Center. I also helped to give away all the bells on those days as well. People were going crazy over these bells, some really crazy. We had a whole bunch of people give us great complements and thanks for the bells being there over the summer. Some people said they changed the way they walk to work just to pass through their to hear them. Almost every one was sad to see it taken down and wondered if it would happen again next year. We had hung around 1200 bells in the trees and I think we ended taking down and giving away around 800-900 because there were quite a few that went missing throughout the summer either from falling or the biggest loss was from theft from people climbing up in the trees and snagging one for themselves. When we started giving them away we put two bells in a bag but quickly went through 300 bells in a hour so we started giving one away. It seems though that every one has a sister or co-worker that just could not make it down to grab a bell and wondered if they could have two. On the first day had some repeat bell grabbers, one lady in particular came back three times and changed coats or umbrellas each time. I guess it's great that some people were so enthralled by this show and it's not often that you get to take a little piece of the art home with you when a show if over. The second day of the giveaway was much lighter and we did have a few repeat bell grabbers from the day before but a lot of people who grabbed bells that day were people that were just happening to walk through. We ended up with a few extras at the end of the day but over all the giveaway was really successful and it was nice to hear all the great feed back and support and hope for more temporary public shows like this in the future.

The Queen Ann View posted about the give away here, which also links to more info about the show.

Here is the video I put together of the bells.



Here are pictures of making the bells and installing them.

You Should Watch

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

This movie really surprised me. I made the mistake of judging it by it's Netflix cover and description. I thought it would be a movie about some snooty emo goth computer nerd girl doing snooty emo goth computer nerd girl things. I guess there is a book or something I probably could have read, but this is a foreign film with subtitles so I figured why read it twice? This movie is really fantastic through, and the mystery does grab you and keep you interested through to the end.  I highly recoment you check this movie out, there are some shocking moments but nothing over the top or undeserved. You can watch it on Netflix instant view, the other two parts of this Trilligoy are still not available yet though.

Here is the trailer.

Take A Hike

Wallace Falls

I decided to go for a hike on Friday and at first I planned on going out to the coast but I woke up late so it didn't make much sense so I decided to find something closer by. I wanted something with a destination, something that you hike to and not just a loop trail. A quick search on the intertubularwebcomputation machine came up with Wallace Falls.

It's fairly easy to find with posted signs along the road as well as plenty of parking. I can see how this trial would be popular on a nice day. Last Friday was an overcast sky and had been raining in the morning so there were only around 10 cars in the lot when I got there. You first walk onto the trial under two sets of massive power lines buzzing above your head, which is a little disappointing. Soon though, you make a turn into the forest where the buzz is replaced by the rushing sound of the river. You quickly come to a junction where you can either continue along the river to the falls or you can go along the longer path which was the old rail grade for the logging camp which takes you through the woods. I decided to take the longer path through the woods and then take the river trail on my way back.

The rail grade was pretty quiet and ever so often you could hear the sounds of the river through the trees. There was plenty of moss on the second growth threes, some of which were fairly massive. Occasionally along the the trail you will see signs indicating the location where an old logging camp or rail trestle use to be. I took a bunch of shots of the forest through this part of the trail.

The rail grade trail eventually reconnects to the trail leading to the falls which is when you start with the switch back trails up to the falls. The trail was fairly empty of people and I only passed about 6 people going up and there was one couple ahead of me that I would occasionally see but for the most part it was just myself. The first set of falls you come to are a set of 5 falls totaling 212 feet two of which can be seen from the view point. These falls are both around 50 feet but very intense spilling through small passage ways carved out in the rock.  Also from the lover view point you get a nice view of the middle falls.

The middle falls is the most impressive both for the view of the falls and the view of the valley below. The climb to the upper falls is the hardest climb of the trail going up 500 feet in 1/2 mile. As your getting up this high the under growth of the forest starts to clear and the upper falls creates a lot of mist which wafts into the forest creating a somewhat spooky feeling. There is not much of a great view of the upper falls but I still say it's worth making the trek to the top. There is a sign at the top warning hikers that they should leave themselves enough daylight to get back to the parking lot because as the sign says it take 2 hours to get back. I was a little worried because I slowly made my way up there leaving the parking lot at 1pm and I got to the top at about 4pm. I decided to take about a 15 minute break then put my camera away and took that 2 hours advisory as sort of a challenge, also I told my sister I would be at her place around 6pm. I left the upper falls at 4:15pm and started to run and trot down the trail making it to the parking lot in 40 minutes. Now I think that 2 hour advisement is a little exaggerated because even if I just walked down I could have probably done it in a little more then an hour.  But it felt good to run through the woods, running through the woods is actually one of my favorite things to do. Even on a trail each step is calculated and there are plenty of opportunities to launch yourself through the air to jump over an obstacle.I only fell once.

This was a fun short day hike and I would defiantly recommend doing it on an off day like I did. I can imaging with 100 people on the trail it would probably not be worth it because the view points and trails would probably be over crowded.

Here are some more pictures I took along the trail.

Holy Guacamole

Jaw Dropping

Check this out

Army Food

The New York Times recently did an article on what the soldiers over in Afghanistan are eating. With all the countries over there helping out each country has their own meals for their soldiers. Most are obviously based on what is popular in said country. Some soldiers use their meals as a sort of currency to trade for better items from other countries, sort of like lunch in elementary school.

Here is the link to the article.
Here is the link to the pictures of just what is in different countries meal packets.

Here is what is inside a US Army MRE (meal ready to eat)

Preview

New Etsy Items

I'm going to be posting some new items I've been working on  in my Etsy store today. They are super simple clean natural wood pieces. They will be fairly inexpensive so they may go fast (hopefully) so hurry up and grab one while you can.

What I was Up To

Ramps

Over the weekend I helped to install some large murals created by Lead Pencil Studio for the new Lake Hills Library. The murals are charcoal drawn on large sheets of aluminum all representing ramps. In all there were 11 panels that stretched almost the entire length of the Library. It took us three days to put them up, working in the library was pretty nice because you could just go the cd section and pick out something to listen to. It was also fun just browsing the shelves I found one book I will defiantly have to go back and check out called What French Women Know. Surrounding the Library is somewhat of a small international shopping strip mall including a mighty dollar store featuring the cheapest crap China has to offer.

Here are some pictures of the murals going up.

What I Was Up To

Installing Circuit, again

The past few days I have been helping to install John Grade's sculpture Circuit at Davidson Gallery in Seattle through September. This is the same piece that I drove across the country and installed in New York a few months back. This will be its second showing before it will be placed upon a mountain where it will change then eventually be shown again in its altered state.

Here are some pictures that I took during the install.