MT Tabor Onions

I'm going public with my famous Mt Tabor Onions. I would have broken it out before Thanksgiving but the systems were not yet in place to accommodate the seismic reaction that is bound to follow the unveiling. Now that everything is set, I can tell you.

I have been honing my onion process for a few years now. My mother used to make them with heroic effort out of her tiny kitchen on w 12th st. She hosted countless Thanksgiving feasts in our wee apartment that would have made Standish proudish. Watching the amazing food pour out of our closet kitchen was like watching 20 clowns climb out of a Mini.

They are basically baked whole onions and they are hard to screw up. They don't take up a lot of oven space, they are inexpensive, you can make them the day before, it is almost impossible to overcook them, and they weather the turmoils of leftoverism with tasty grace. Plus, it's fun to throw a whole onion on someone's plate.

Get enough small to mid sized yellow onions to sardine fit into a square or rectangular Pyrex or some such dish.

Chop the tops and the bottoms off making two planes parallel to the horizon. Peal the outer skin off. Then, with a paring knife, slice out a little trough, creating a peak in the center. Throw the conical onion off-cut into the stuffing or something.

Drip a puddle of balsamic and drop a pad of butter into the trough of each onion. Put a 1/4"-1/2" chicken broth in the pan and liberally sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Throw it in the oven at 325 or 350 for about 3 hours and serve them up. One each.

I drool.

Save Moron Car Insurance

Am I the only one who thinks that Geico's tag line is offensive? Probably. I have honed my ability to find the "that's what she said" (or the "said the actress to the Bishop") type of humor everywhere. It has become a distraction. I can hardly hear a sentence without somehow making some joke of it in my head by linking words or formulating absurd metaphors. Fortunately, with this skill, I have also developed a self imposed censorship firewall that usually works to stifle the most offensive inclinations before I blurt them out.

My point is that when Geico says "fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance." I am left with the idea that they are calling their product insurance for morons. The copy editors at The Martin Agency must have seen that, right? It has bugged me for years, what can I say?

proretrovino

Things are tapering off at the winery. What with the sticky grapes, the long hours and the earwigs gnawing at my brains, I have only been able to imagine blog entries. Ones rich and fruity. Somewhere between my inspiration and my fingertips there has been some interference and I have to blame it on blissful exhaustion.

The video is a morning punchdown of some Pinot Noir in a 3000 gallon oak fermenter. It is about 10 feet tall. The grape cap is a couple/three feet thick on the top, so there is a good 6 feet of juice below. My job here is to break up the cap and mix it up with my feet. If you think it is gross, you are right. My feet should be featured in a JRR Tolkien book.

I have jumped on the opportunity to make some wine myself. I have a deal with Garnier Vinyard in Mosier, OR. They gave me a ton of Merlot grapes and I am going to give them some wine! They had a surplus of grapes. What are you going to do when you grow more grapes than you can sell? I am hoping to make some drinkable vino. No, I want to put Merlot back on the map. I am proretrovino. I yeasted it two days ago and she is starting to take off. I will keep you posted.

Wall Of Fruit

It feels like all Hell is about to be released in the form of 1500 tons of grapes. I have started working at the winery for the '09 harvest and the weather is freaking everybody out. This is my second harvest at Rex Hill. It is so much fun I can hardly tell you. So many freakin' grapes, you wouldn't believe it. There is drama, there is danger, there are huge decisions to be made on the spot, there are millions of bees and billions of earwigs. What could be better? I am in awe of wine.

One of the most intriguing things I came away with last year is how saturated wine is with the winemaker's signature. I mean, these guys shoot from the hip. When you have twenty ferments going on at once, the winery is run like an ICU. Each tank needing specific love and each one getting it.

The hours are pretty brutal. It is total immersion and it is finite so I am happily making a wine widow of my poor wife and vinorphans of my kids. The harvest will wind up around Thanksgiving. I will try to take some pictures but I am serious about these sticky grapes. They keep us so busy and gooey that I rarely have the chance to take any pics.

I will scan my hands every week and post them to monitor their purplification.

You Can't Get Arrested For Felting.

Felting is not just for the becoddlement of my indulgent monkey feet. Here is my daughter with her felt puppet she made with her mom last week. I feel we will continue to felt. The word itself makes me want to write a Dr Seuss style story.

"If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good."
-- Dr. Seuss

9/11

Who was the first person you called when the towers fell?  I called Isaac Mizrahi.  How crazy is that?  I rode my bike to the studio extra early that morning because I was designing a table for Isaac and he was sending a film crew to my studio to shoot some process footage for his show.   I wanted to make sure that all my best crap was hanging on the walls and the place looked immaculate but functional.  This was going to be my big break and obviously it was overwhelmingly important.  I wanted to look cool, so I put on my favorite t shirt, a sleeveless black rock t for the band "Twin Barrels Burning" printed in yellow.  Black and yellow...stings like a bee. 

Next thing you know, my pal Julius who worked for some French furniture fruitcakes next door to me told me to head up to the roof because a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers.  The studio was in long Island City, Queens.  From the roof we had a clear view down the East River.  That explains this weird picture.  That is also where the soapbox derby team name came from.  Any ways, after the second tower was hit but before either of them fell, I went downstairs and called Isaac and asked if we were still on!?!  I mean, the whole thing was so shocking and surreal I just wondered if I was going to be on camera in an hour or not.  

No.  The shoot was postponed.  Thank god, I wasn't really ready yet.  No, I wasn't behind 911.

Seriously, I have met so many people who experienced 9/11 from so many different places and there is a similar characteristic or look in one's eye when they reflect back on that horrible, horrible day.  Whether they were in the bloodbath at the foot of the towers or if they were on the west coast learning about the events from 3000 miles away, everybody tapped into a new, deep, communal pool of sadness and disbelief.  What a day.

I always think of 911 when I see firefighters.  You should have heard the sirens coming from all over the planet, funneling down the avenues and across the bridges to lower  Manhattan.  From the roof of the studio it was terribly eerie hearing the screaming sirens while the skies were completely quiet as all air traffic was grounded.  You don't realize how many friggin' planes and choppers are always flying overhead until they stop.  

I don't really have a point I just want to spew.  9/11/09 

Felting Sounds Like Something You Should Be Arrested For

So of course when my wife said that we should start felting, I was all for it. It turns out that felting is not what I thought. It is actually a very intriguing ancient textile.

They say that felt is the oldest textile. Monkey man wrap fleece under foot with leather. Monkey man make felt.

My new favorite movie is about ten minutes long and shows this Iranian felt maker doing his thing. It is on the peaceindustry website . My secret dream now is to make a rug in the vein of Claudy Jongstra, a Dutch felt maker. Of course, I want to do it naked with my beautiful wife, in the desert somewhere. Is there anyone out there who would consider watching our kids for a few days? There might be a funky felt coaster in it for ya. Below are some examples of Claudy's work.

So this Monkeyman tuned up the Chuck T's with a felt tuck dalmatian print insert. I put a few layers of wool in each sneaker, spritzed them with some hot soapy water and wore them sockless as I installed my new floor in the bathroom. They turned out great. Comfy, cozy, primitive, rebellious, street, hip, and invisible. Actually, I like the fact that the sneakers look pretty road warrior from the outside but little do people know: My coddled tootsies are basking in extreme bunnycomfort. Steve Martin used to put a slice of bologna in his shoes because it made him feel funny. Maybe I will try that next.... hello? Is this thing on?

Thank You

I speak for the whole Twin Barrels Burning team when I say thank you for the explosive interest in our recent endeavor.  What started as a reason to drink beer on Tuesday evenings blossomed into a veritable movement towards a more barrel vehicle filled planet.  I don't see why it wouldn't happen.  

Our team was stacked.  We had nerdistic levels of expertise and blind devotion focused on the design and fabrication of the silliest car in town.   Our talents comprised a perfect storm of design, craftsmanship and stupidity.  The result was a true collaboration done in a relatively civil manner.  I hardly even cried.  I am welling up with tears now though.  I can't help it.  I loved the process, the flexibility, the open mindedness and of course, the execution of this project.  It was a very rewarding experience. 

I would rather work with those guys than with some of the best people in the world.

And I mean that.   

Clowns are animals too!

One of my best friends from high school, Toms Bugby Royal, lives in Wishram WA.  He is a mosaic artist who also works for the railroad, shuttling railroad workers around in a van from the Wishram depot.  He called me yesterday and told me that the Ringling Bros train just pulled up and was letting all the circus animals out to stretch.  He was telling me that elephants were walking past linked by trunk and tail,  horses and tigers, monkeys etc.  I asked him if they let the clowns out.  No.  Of course not.  The clowns weren't allowed to leave the train.  Not even for a second.  I don't think it is fair but I understand.

I am no stranger to clownery.  Unfortunately the documentation of my foray into the realm of the painted funster reveals but one aspect of the blithen darkness,  shrouded by The Tainted Veil of Jelly Beanerie.  I have been an advocate for clowns' rights since I went to the see Ringling Bros on acid back in the 80's.  

My friends and I even went to demonstrate at midnight on the Manhattan side of the Midtown Tunnel when they were bringing the circus animals over from Queens to Madison Square Garden.  We were standing there with the animal rights activists, but our signs said: "Bigger Cars For Clowns!" and "Clowns Are Animals Too!"  Hopefully with your support we can slowly make things better for this misunderstood group.  

My pal Sam Rodd is sort of a pioneer in clown psychology.  He put together this documentary and graciously bestowed upon me the important task of Being Clown.  I am the guy with the red nose.

Peeper

Presenting one of the biggest tiny tables ever made!  Here is the Peeper set I designed and built for a Waldorf school here in Portland.  If I get an engineering trophy for the slowest car in a derby, I should get something for designing the biggest tiny table.  This thing is McMassive!  It accommodates 16 squirming 4 year olds with room for a teacher.  I am excited to see it get beat up a little so it looks less important.  That shouldn't take too long.

I fabricated this bamboo blockbuster at a guest facility.  The top of my noggin looks like an inverted golf ball from banging it 9000 times on the low duct work in my friend's basement shop but it is all worth it.  Rudolf Steiner would be pleased.
To give you some reference of scale, here is a picture of Kapow Design's oldest intern with Peeper.  

Best Engineering

Our car wreaked of many things, but engineering?  I mean, I don't know a lot about engineering from an engineering standpoint, per se.   Some of the other cars made me think "engineering", our car made me think, "what kind of idiot...?".  WE WERE THE SLOWEST CAR!   I thought the Drunken Pig (pink and white) should have our trophy.  Now that I am thinking about it, I am going to give it to him...  when I am good and dead.  

Look at us!  oh yeah, engineering, baby!  This is the last picture of the twins I will be posting.  I can't help myself.  

Twin Barrels Burning Rolls!

I might have found my fight club.  Riding 'The Twins" down Mt Tabor was like shoving a whale into a VW and was easily the most terrifying 5 mph I have ever gone.  I laugh so hard when I see a video my friend made of us rolling by.  My body is as tense as a log jam and my head looks like it is in a vise.  I remember knowing where my family and friends were but fearing distraction too much to even move my thumb the 1/2" to acknowledge them with a scream from our siren.  My personal goal was to reach my health insurance deductible but like many other goals I have set, that one eluded me. If you knew my deductible, you would have said it was ambitious.  

We are a six person team and we were in three heats so it worked out that everyone got to take a ride.  We were the slowest car on the track that day but I think our intensity and our struggle vindicated our efforts.  I think I can speak for the whole team when I say that we certainly did not intend to be the slowest but we pulled it off.  In the second heat, Eric and Derrick caused a little drama when they engaged in a 2 mph fender bender with a Water Department Security Jeep that was parked 100 yards in front of the finish line. 

Twins-1 Security Jeep-0.

At the beginning of the third heat we had a troubled start and the Twins were in the gutter 30 feet off the line. We wrestled it back onto the road and aimed downhill again. It slowly began to descend and as it did, the crowd closed in behind and walked down with them cheering and clapping.  It was like a demented Coke commercial, David and Trevor gritting their teeth and having the full 3 mph Twin Barrels Battle while kids are passing them on scooters cheering.  It was very funny.

We ended up winning a trophy for best Engineering!  My friend Julius congratulated us for getting the smartest prize for the dumbest car.  For a while I didn't think we really deserved that particular prize until Derrick reminded me that we put disc brakes on wine barrels with a '57 Ford F100 drop axle for a frame and rode them down a mountain.  I saw several cars there that I thought should have our trophy, though.  I was secretly hoping that we would get crowd favorite but we lost out to a giant Lego car.  I was feeling the love in the pit and from the crowd but I guess the numbers didn't add up in our favor.   We should have gone with a more identifiable brand.

We have plans to do it again next year.  I can't wait.  We will make the Twins faster.  That is all I can say at this point.  Below is the rig as it looked race day.  We installed the siren that is powered by a motorcycle battery.  We also put in some machine guns in the yokes but the yolk was on us when we found out water was all we were allowed to shoot.  This photo was taken by Squid Vicious.

Twin Barrels Are Heating Up

The race is this Saturday.  We are taking the rig to the mountain tomorrow for a test run.  This thing is 10 feet long, probably 400 lbs, and hops like a bull in a rodeo stall.  It is a bone crusher. It will make you a cartoon.  It should have a poet in residence.  It scratches so many itches I can hardly focus.  

Here is how to make one:

First you get three wine barrels.  

Wrap two of them with bicycle tires and staple. 

Countersink and screw the banding to the staves. 

Shove an axle through them.  

On the front barrel you need to build a plates for each side to mount the rotors and the brake assembly

Mount the aforementioned technology

Build yolks

Cut hole in third barrel to accommodate an old truck axle

Bolt third barrel to old truck axle using angle iron

Attach yolks to an old truck axle and third barrel with kingpins

Style and attach gussets where needed 

Build handle bars off of front yoke

Add foot pegs on front yoke for leg steering

Let simmer 

My pal and team mate David Lewin made this image that will be on our race jerseys.  

The ladies love it!

Twin Barrels Burning Team:

Eric Black, Architect

Derrick Benson, Kaizen Leader

David Lewin, Industrial Designer

Sam Tannahill, Winemaker

Trevor McWilliams, Assistant to the Intern

and myself

Let's Redo The Bathroom!

Why? Why did I do it?  Redoing my second floor bathroom might be one of the worst decisions I have ever made.  It is more than a nightmare.  It is an open wound, a festering abscess but worse!  It is viral.  The extent to which the ill effects have infiltrated even the most remote and exclusive aspects of my life is mind boggling.  The venomous tentacles have saturated everything from my pocketbook to my sex life to my newly compromised DNA.  It is unbelievable.

You don't have to tell me, I already know: Getting into an old house is looking for trouble. That is why I was prepared for twice as much as I thought it would be, but a BILLION times more?!? Things have spun out of control.

The clincher is that this whole catastrophe is all because we thought we didn't like the way our old bathroom looked.  I mean, it was nice enough.  It flushed, it soaked, the lights turned on and off.  The tub filled right up or if we were so inclined, we could take a nice shower.  There were even random tiles with animal scenes on them.  Come to think of it, it was one of the nicest bathrooms I have ever seen.

Why did I do it?  Where were my handlers?

Rather than showing you pictures of the battle zone I have made a montage of bruises, contuses and lacerations I have accumulated.  They tell the story better than I.

Update

Quick update on a few projects:

The Soapbox car has a pulse. 

The Plastiplums are not yielding very exciting results...yet.

Peeper chairs are done.  Kiddie Conference Table on deck.

$44.00 for a pair of Chuck T's, I think Not!

I don't know if you know this but Converse was bought by Nike a couple three years ago.  So my beloved Chuckie T's are now allowed on campus!  (ref: Nike campus in Beaverton, shoe regulation)  

I feel like I have been burning through my Chucks faster than usual.  At first I attributed it to the load I carry on my shoulders.  That would make sense.  I don't swing my arms anymore when I walk and my feet slap when they hit the ground.  Even in grass.  But I can't imagine that accounting for more than a small percentage of the overall deterioration of the sole.  

My point is that I am not going to sit in Nike's backyard and pay $44 and change for kicks that last a month and a half.  Not unless they hire me.

I am going to see how long I can keep this pair going.  I have a little more work to do but here is the breakdown of what has happened over the past few days.  I wore them around today, mowed the lawn, rode up Mt Tabor, they feel good.  Actually they feel friggin' awesome.

I put music to the slideshow and it is by Action Daddy. 

Put It On Casters! Passive Aggressive Furniture Fabrication

Of course architects can design furniture... they design whole friggin' buildings for crying out loud.   But seriously, I love architects.  I pick them out on the street.  As a matter of fact, last year at the ButtJoint I was working with the big door open and this dude walked by.  I asked him if he was an architect and low and behold!  I think it freaked him out.  He probably thought I had met him somewhere but I could actually just tell.  I can pick out bass players too.  

Anyway, I was having a conversation with a couple of architects I know the other day and one says, "I know, take a log and put it on casters!" He snapped his fingers and turned around triumphantly as if all problems were solved and it was that easy.

I was instantly reminded of this log with a few different chair back styles poking out of it at the Hudson Hotel in NYC. 

"That sounds like an architect thing to do." I said.

My friend, an architect, designed the bench at the Hudson.  I never loved it.  I thought it wreaked of what it was: An undeveloped, smartypants whim.  It is like a joke from the movie "Airplane".  With the budget he had... he should have put wheels on it, at least.  I mean, why stop there?  let's put some USB ports in it.  Ohhh, if I ran the Zoo!

Of course, it isn't just architects who do such things.  To my horror and surprise I found this image from something that came out of the Droog studio in Holland.  Same wacky idea but this time they made the chair backs out of metal (maybe gilded).  Holy Irony!  I am guessing an architect who works at Droog did it.  Prove me wrong and I will send you a free t shirt.

So I decided to call my architect friend's bluff and put some casters on a log.  Bring on the awards!  Notify MOMA! Get ID Magazine on the phone! I have to say that it makes moving the log around a whole lot easier and Passive Aggressive Furniture Making is a relatively healthy way to deal with my design demons.   Working it out...

Soapbox Derby Update

If you close your eyes, you can feel the rumble. No, Dave Lombardo didn't move into your basement.  It's not the world coming to an end! 

It is the sound of Twin Barrels Burning.  

The race is 5 weeks away and The Solution is crystalizing.

I am calling it The Solution because it is not a car, it is an answer.  

Beautiful Glossy Plastiplums: As Green't As It Gets.

Like eating all of the food on my plate, I always feel like I should use all of the two part epoxy I mix for a project.  Today, in a panic, I plasticoated a few plums, on a tree, in a client's back yard.  

My Personal Epoxy System (PES) requires me to mix a portion dictated by the epoxy pump designers, so usually I have a little extra.  Worst case scenario is that I get a jolly, cracking out the paintbrush epoxicle from the yogurt container I used to mix the polymeric elixir.  Wet epoxy is as nasty as it is cool, so I a strive to waste not a single, engineered drop.

I coated a few plums and I am very excited to see what will happen. It may have been the most important thing I did all day.  I am flooded with epoxy integrated plant ideas.  No, good ones... really good ones.  Maybe I will cast some clear cubes around some saplings and grow a fauxrest. How green't is that? Send me some epoxy and I'll freakin' do it.  

Leave it to Hallmark

I know what color my parachute is but I have yet to see it deploy.  It would be nice to see soon, as I barrel into a career crisis.  Come on little chute... inflate already.  Pappa is a worried man.  For over ten years I have been indulging in a career choice that has been my passion but I have not been able to make it work financially.  If you saw my bank book you would think I was an artist!    Although Fathers' day does not carry too much weight on my calendar, I can't help but reflect upon what I have accomplished in the context of fatherhood on this Hallmark holiday.  

I wish everything was as good as my kids.

  

Confounded Compucurves

For a curve to work, it has to be right.  For a curve to be right, it has to feel natural.  For a curve to feel natural, it has to be messaged and caressed and considered.  The aesthetic impact of an incorrect curve is hard to quantify but I will say that it is one of the most important things facing us in these troubled times.  Take the human form for example.  The difference between the shape of a nice looking leg and a leg that really makes you go "Waka Waka", is subtle. You need mad verbal skills to describe exactly what it is that you like more about one leg than the other but there is a significant difference.  In design, you want to be the master of such subtleties, even if you sound like a nut trying to explain why a joke is funny in your pursuit. 

So I have this issue:  I use computers in my design process for a lot but I believe that the real sensuality of an object is easier to obtain through fine art/kung fu/ hands on manipulation. Designing on a computer takes some of the subtle control away from the artist.  The computer offers a spline and a tendency is to accept it. I tend to form a curve using a billion strokes of a pen with variations of line weight until the thing feels right and natural. Then I will trace what I want and poof!  there is a sexy, natural curve... on a piece of paper.  

Now, in the case of Peeper, I have to get that curve onto the computer and translated through a cad program, into a cnc router and onto the profile of a piece of wood without losing any of the grace I have worked so hard to achieve.  And lemme tell ya, it ain't easy.

The picture posted is of a shape that I drew at full scale, transfered onto then cut out of card board, scanned in 4 separate shots, pieced back together, and then traced in Illustrator.  Then that line drawing goes to the cad program and gets finessed (assaulted) again before it goes to the cnc driver software where my beautiful shapes get chopped up into a trillion little 90 degree steps to form the illusion of a smooth curve.  I am looking forward to seeing how different the final product is from my original drawing.  Hopefully the Waka Waka factor will elude dilution.  

  

Peeper

I have been working on a big brother to the Peep furniture line I made for hip toddlers and their cool parents.  The first time I tried it, a few years ago, I simply scaled up the Peep chair and it looked silly.  

Some things just don't scale up.

That made me think about how goofy we would look if we were scaled up babies.  I would be a six foot baby.  Here is where I found my direction for the new larger Peep line.  I might call it Peeper.  My plan is to figure out a profile shape that looks like the Peep chair, only three years older.  I am studying the metamorphosis of my own kid and am trying to apply that growth to the new chair.  

As a baby he was comfortable in his chubbitude.  Now he is a little awkward and is starting to show signs of humility as his body blurts out in different directions.  Parts of his body seem to grow at different rates.  I want to capture that sweet gawkiness  in the form of Peeper.  I think I can.  It will be tough to prove me wrong.

Here are some of the shapes I have been playing with.  I am honing in on it.  

It is amazing how subtle changes in shape can effect the personality of a blob.  Why is one funnier than another and why is one aggressive and one is slovenly.   The third one down and two over looks like it would be a tennis pro if it were human. I actually dated a girl who had an annoying friend always wore shoes that looked like the one to the right of the sad clown one.

Brief History

I wish did and am glad I didn't, start this blog a few years ago.   If I did, you would know the painful history of the Peep kiddie furniture line.  It is a story packed with design and manufacturing action including a dream ICFF moment, international nightmares, glossy accolades and an insider's theory on why all those American furniture manufacturers are reduced to an office with a guy who orders components from China and a giant warehouse full of cob web covered machines.  

In a simple sentence:  I could not find a manufacturer.  

It drove me batty.  Below is a short video I made to make a point to these guys in Jamestown, NY when they sent me a revised production model of the little Peep desk.  When the chair practically fell apart in my hands I set up the camera for this demonstration.  

Needless to say, we weren't a match.  I should have known when I saw their company hat was camo with green lettering and logo. I am wearing it in the video.  Don't get me wrong, I painted black and gray flames on my black designmobile and they are invisibly cool as hell but in the wrong application it's just plain dupid.  

Aesthetic Enhancement Devices On Display!

Bridging the gap between art and design with the launch of the Aesthetic Enhancement Device System next Thursday, here in Portland.

When I moved out of the Buttjoint Studio last July,  I took a look at my work surfaces as I dismantled the werkshop.  I have always loved the look and feel of a really worked surface. Layers of deliberate marks, gouges and spills create an Uberpatina.  It is a caricature of natural distress. Rich.  

So I chopped them up into 1' squares, framed them in mod bamboo, shellaced and waxed them, and boom, they are ready to hang.  Of course, I could make a dead cat look good with that scrumptious shellac and wax.  I freakin' love it.  There have been many occasions where my mouth starts to water as I gaze upon a waxy wood surface.  I have not yet actually taken a bite but I would not write that out as a potential future furniture faux pas on my part.  I almost chomped a WWI rifle stock I saw at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum last week.  My restraint is weakening but my resolve remains unscathed.

They are not art.  They are product. Actually they are a by-product.  They are ironically hectic remains from the fabrication process of all that clean lined, scandinavian inspired furniture. Each mark is explainable and has a reason.  As chaotic as it looks, each blemish is because of something and that justifies it for me.  

I think it would make a great architectural feature.  Sell it by the square foot.  Fake it.  Write a random program for the cnc router and start crankin'  sheets.  Word to your mother.  (ref: The New Old School Design Collective, 2002) 

Portland Adult Soapbox Derby

One of the 39 coveted spots is MINE!!! The Adult Soapbox Derby is one of the best events I have ever been involved with.  This will be the second entry for me.  In '06 we were 11th on the waiting list and got the call a couple of weeks before the race, notifying us that we were in.  We managed to fabricate a rickety rig that ended up looking like a pile of dead pelicans on the side of the course 3/4 of the way down our first run.  

This year is going to be different.  Inspired by both the tenacity and the visual impact of an unflushable flake, Team Floater is poised to make soapbox history with the new concept vehicle.  I can't say I have seen one of these before.  It is basically a giant two wheeled skateboard made with a couple of wine barrels.  (UPDATE!  As inspiring as the unflushable flake is, we have changed the team name to the more appropriate "Twin Barrels Burning")

First order of business is to drink 120 gallons of wine.  

Here is the doomed pelican.

Padulo Bench

Here are some images from a bench table thing I just completed.  The wood is some crazy African spalted something.  I couldn't tell you.  I also have a video of one of my interns at the Kapow Design Extreme Furniture Fabrication Facility applying some shellac.  It is an old school method and I love the results.  A few million coats of shellac and some clear, not-so-hard wax and you have to be concerned that someone will come by and try to take a bite out of your furniture.  It looks that good.  It really makes my mouth water.

Here is some cool leopard looking spalted African Whackywood.  

Here are a couple of slabs under clamps at the South Facitlity

This vid is 3 about minutes long.  It shows one of our star interns applying shellac using the same technique used by Thomas Chippendale back in '54.  That would be 1754.

Can You Hear Me Now?

When my cell phone rings I look to see who is calling then I answer, "hello?" like I don't know who it is.  Sometimes I will even go another step and follow with a "Oh, hey!" adding the notion of surprise to my misleading greeting when I fake find out who it is.  Why?

The reason is that I was brought up on phones that rang and you answered them with sincerity.  It is a lingering habit formed before ATMs existed, and I have not been able to shake it.  I have taken note, however and was inspired to think about how we initiate phone conversations.  As an experiment, my friend and I are attempting to dispose of salutations and get right to the point of the call.  RING RING.  We are shaving ten, even fifteen seconds off the front end of each conversation.  So if you do some simple math:  2 billion cell phones on earth, averaging 6.5 calls per day times 10 seconds of vaporous hellotalk is about 4122 years per day!  Check it.  Go ahead.

The big idea actually hit as a result of this line of thinking.  Too big, really. I am going to bury it for a few years.  Let things mature.

Oh No! A Grad School Story!

I had a teacher at Pratt who was as inspiring as he was detestable.  (I actually had a few of those) That doesn't have a lot to do with the story but it was the case.  One class he announced that we were going to take ten minutes and make paper airplanes and whoever made the plane that flew the farthest wins.  So we all set about folding up the best planes we could remember how to make.  I think I just went with a dart style plane with a folded over nose.  Ultra creased and absolutely symmetric.  Not too inspired but it was the best I could come up with.  Everyone else did a version of the one I did with the exception of this one guy who crumpled up his paper into a tight ball.  When it was his turn he just chucked this thing and beat everyone soundly.  It was great.  

As ironic as it sounds, it takes a lot of discipline to think freely.  To control your mind and not allow yourself to drift over to the gutter that is the way things have been done before, is a real talent.  Of course, when someone says "plane" you think of some wings and a fuselage because that is what the Wright brothers made them.    

So when Leo (our 4 yr old) called me over to see the paper planes he made, I felt like the The April Fool for spending all that money on grad school when I could have just observed a bunch of kids and learned the most important thing Pratt taught me: how to think.

I have to say, those tissue planes fly wonderfully.  They fly like the bag in the film the kid made in the movie, American Beauty. You know, the movie where that guy does that thing?