outdoors

While watching The Universe last night on the History channel, I was blown away by a simple comment made by one of the presenters. While showing a solar eclipse, she pointed out that only Earth has the unique view of a moon that perfectly matches the sun in size from it's perspective. My first thought was, man, someone did way too much math figuring THAT one out, immediately followed by, wait, why has this unbelievable fact never occurred to me before? Granted, I'm not some space nerd who follows what NASA is up to, but this is simply a matter of looking up! The moon is a perfect fit over the sun! What are the odds? Think about it.

Think, damn you!

my president can kick your president's butt!

Now allow me to distract you with this!

Buy yours here! ...if you speak crasian.

==crafty==

On facebook, I recently added the following post (via Sarah, who you'll also find there), then proceeded to fill my front page with artists and musicians who made me giddy, which in turn, pushed this offer farther and farther to the bottom of the page until it was no longer even visible. I guess I timed that wrong. After two takers, the crowds dispersed.

So, I wanted to see if I'd get three more people to jump on this offer here on my blog! (I'll just leave this page up until I do, which I realize, could take until spring.)
here's my original facebook post, which you can see if you're a friend.

===+===+===+===
The first five three people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year.
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this offer in your facebook notes on your blog as well. We all can make stuff!

(Send me a note with your address too!)

star bokeh

I've been meaning to try my hand at making my own filter. The nice thing about having a lensbaby 2.0 is that the aperture rings magnetically attach inside the lens, so all you need to do is cut a small piece of gaffers tape into the shape you desire. (Although, I see they are way ahead of me!) I went with the ever popular star filter, and got about 8 shots in before my shutter decided it had had enough of this cold, cruel world. So, three quarters of my images are now black. As if I needed a stronger excuse to have a new camera.

indoors

These daisies are so deep red that my lame-ass camera couldn't capture the color. So I started desaturating, and it soon became an art project. Sandy can relate.

It's a cookie-baking, chicken-pot-pie-making, weight-gaining weekend. A typical Wisconsin winter on course.

just silver

I elected to take a snow day today (reasons are completely legitimate, if you're wondering) to process some pix and banish our holiday wares to the attic for the next 10.5 months. approx.

I love fresh snow, as long as I don't have to go anywhere, but Cupcake's birthday party is tonight and Charlie "Storm-tino" is threatening of a winter weather advisory until 6am tomorrow. He's a bastard like that. But the weekend has arrived and snowdrifts be damned!

Note: If you happen to see a Scion tc in the ditch on I-90 tonight, please call the proper authorities. Thank you.

peet illustration

Road trip to Chicago! More like train trip, but that doesn't carry as much excitement. We were suppose to go there with friends but they missed the train, and as fans of mine are aware, I do not own a cell phone. So, it was just gp and myself and we pretty spent the whole time at the Art Institute of Chicago soaking in all it's arty goodness.

Current exhibits included Cartier-Bresson photography, their newly re-opened impressionist gallery, and The Bill Peet Storybook Menagerie! To which I sneaked in a photo or two. shhhhh. I don't recall which children's book this illustration is from, let's just say, it's all good!

I was just slightly disappointed with the Cartier-Bresson exhibit as we had seen a documentary showing an impressive amount of work from all his travels, but the Institute had him sharing one room with other similar works from French photographers and illustrators. Even so, I'm not complaining. It was all wonderful and made me wish a trip back to Paris was in my near future. Back in time would be equally fantastic...along with a Leica and a 50mm.

a kinder, gentler bumble

Tamed since the last post.