spring? Just kidding!(?)

Urban winter poop, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

With temperatures supposed to get up to 50°F this week, it feels like spring in the middle of February. However, I'm pretty sure we're getting suckered.

new desk time

Desk at the beginning, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

probably not a good sign that my desk is starting out messy

short break

Lombard St at night 11/12/2001, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

It's been a couple weeks since I updated and a bit since I uploaded to flickr as well because basically I've been waiting for iLife 09. Now that I have it, I'm still learning my way through the inner-workings of the program but so far I'm really liking it.

nostalgia

Baby RB, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

used my Dad's new scanner to digitize and preserve hundreds of photos, negatives, and slides. The whole process takes some time, but sure threw me back.

Turns out as much as I like the ease and convenience of digital photos, they will never rival their film counterparts. I'll be scanning and uploading more soon.

comic bookin'

indianaJones03, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

Had tons of fun today making a short comic book using my camera, RB's LEGOs, and Comic Life. If only I had more time.

merry!

Holiday GSD gargoyles, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

Merry Christmas!

Over

Pod aftermath, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

It was one long tough semester, but it's over. You can see the aftermath of over a week of nearly live-in conditions at studio. Near the end any non-essential item on my desk simply got brushed to the floor and ended up accumulating quite deep. I think I may need a trash can dedicated solely to my desk.

fireworks

deep red, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

I normally hate photos of fireworks but for some reason I always take photos of them anyway…and so does everyone else. I took some photos of the firework show at the fourth of july celebration on the Boston Esplanade over the weekend which were the best firework show I've ever seen by far. They kept going and going. I set my camera on the ground, using my shoe as a tripod, and kept shooting sight unseen. What came out I think was pretty nice. Almost painterly. Still, I apologize for the copious number of firework shots added to the already bloated number floating around already.

spaceball

spaceball or what, originally uploaded by guckstdu.

Today at work I had to put together a large number of photos of bike parking facilities as part of a precedent study that we're beginning. So naturally I turned to flickr to find some images. However my attempts to drag the images into a folder were thwarted with the annoying "spaceball.gif." What is "spaceball?" I really didn't check, but I'm fairly certain that it's a 1x1 fully transparent image that is stretched over the protected image on a CSS layer that sits on top. (If anyone wants to correct me on this, feel free). Anyway, I looked into the page's source file and was able to get the urls for the images, but that was slow and tedious until I got the idea to simply add the url for spaceball.gif to my adblocker plugin. Once I did this, I was able to drag and drop any image from flickr with no problems.

The url to block the spaceball is here: http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif

Also, in all my flickr journies I've found that I really do not like HDR, digital B&W photos, and stupid "BESTEST FLICKR FOTOS EVAR!!1!!1ONE!" type groups. Please avoid them. For everyone's sake

sasquatch

confetti, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

If you know me, you know I like concerts. and what's better than a concert? How about fifty concerts?! In the past I've shirked my schoolwork for a weekend to drive down I-5 to the deadly heat of the Mojave for the Coachella music and arts festival for two or three days of 100°+ weather and nearly non-stop concerts. It's where I saw Daft Punk in their legendary return show and the debut of the now legendary digital pyramid and Justice in their first ever live (non DJ) set. It's also where I was introduced to, and frightened by, the Animal Collective and Hot Chip.

But this year Coachella's lineup looked a little less than inspiring and my attention turned northward to a similar, but smaller festival out in the middle-of-nowhere Washington state. Sasquatch has three stages to Coachella's five or six, but the venue is a natural amphitheater that overlooks a surreal gorge with visibility for miles around. There really isn't much to compare it to except for maybe the grand canyon (which is actually much, much larger). For me there were three reasons to make the cross-country trek to the gorge: The Flaming Lips, The Cure, and friends. The Flaming Lips don't play that many shows, but when they do they are supposed to be spectacular. The Cure, who is basically just Robert Smith is so old and drug addled that I'm in constant fear that he wont last much longer and I'll never see him live. But also I really wanted to see friends who have made it a tradition to go to sasquatch every year.

The first day of the three day festival was a little rocky as it rained intermittently throughout the day and really let loose during REM. But during a sunny patch MIA played a really great set which included pulling up tons of concertgoers onto stage. The second day started off slow as Trish and I waited in line to use the shower. The line, which wasn't extraordinarily long, ended up taking nearly two hours. But fortunately there was water left and we didn't miss anything noteworthy. That day we ended up seeing Rogue Wave, which hit a technical snag but was able to pull through, and the nearly forgotten, but loved, Presidents of the United States of America. But the highlight was definitely the Cure…For me at least. Having been thwarted at an earlier attempt at seeing the Cure in NYC late last year, I really wanted to see him before he finally kicks the bucket. They played some good songs and a lot of lesser known ones to start which would have left me okay, but perhaps not entirely satisfied. And then they went ahead and played six encores entirely from Boys Don't Cry. Those really made my night. The third day was the best weather-wise and it became apparent that I was developing a sunburn on my face from the high-altitude sun exposure. There were some good performances that day and near the end we went down to the stage level for the final acts to position ourselves for the Flaming Lips. The Mars Volta played second to last and I wasn't even sure what to expect even in terms of music. From the instruments they prepared it could have been a delightful mix of styles. But from the moment they started to play it was pure agony. There was no rhythm, no hook, no cohesion. Every instrument was competing with the next to be the loudest and the fastest. And then there was the vocalist who was strung out on something and thrashing around onstage throwing a cymbal and an electric fan out into the crowd and fighting a cameraman for his camera. The display crossed the line that separates theatrics into recklessness. So what did I do? I pulled out one of the complimentary magazines handed out earlier and began to read right down in front of some of the fans that were trying to push past. But all was forgotten when the Flaming Lips came on to close the three days of shows. It started with a descending UFO which the lead singer (Wayne) came out of and got into a clear plastic bubble which inflated around him and then walked down onto the crowd itself. Also, the whole time there were people dancing on the sides of the stage dressed as telletubbies, and at some point a giant inflatable sun and astronaut came out as well…for no apparent reason. Also, the generous use of confetti was much appreciated as were the enormous balloons put out onto the crowd. It was all very entertaining and satisfying in the end.

All in all I had a great time. I guess the next time I do anything like this though I'm renting a hotel where the shower line should be less than two hours.

whaling

Surface Zoom, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

It's been too long since updating here basically since I've been incredibly busy with the ending school year, a brief trip out the west coast and everything in-between. Anyway, I'll try and catch up a bit starting now.

A few weeks ago Trish and I went on a whale watching cruise from the New England Aquarium in boston. After a week of planning and postponing we finally made it out for the Saturday afternoon boat. The boat took us about thirty miles offshore into the Atlantic to a marine preserve where humpback whales do their feeding. I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't expect to see so many whales and so close up. Before the boat left we heard someone ask how many whales the earlier boat had seen which was apparently around four. However we easily saw over a dozen whales including a cow and her calf. The trip was great until the boat turned back to shore and I began to get a little sea sick. But I did what I've always done in that situation, sleep. I find that as long as I can sleep I can pretty much shake off any motion sickness. Definitely a great little tour.

done

plan, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

This monday was the final review for our fifth and last project of the first year. In order to build the final models I estimate that I spent around twelve hours on the laser cutter cutting over three-hundred precise individual pieces out of chipboard. I remember making fun of those pale kids hunched over the computers in the basement cutting out sheet after sheet of whatever for a model. I thought I would never be one of them. But after spending hours myself hunched over the slow computers with blackened fingers inhaling chipboard smoke and toxic plexi fumes I am no longer above anyone. I also spent quite a bit of time getting cozy with the CNC router in a semi-failed materials experiment. Now I have a few days to catch up on sleep and try to figure out my summer before the last round of finals hit next week.

flamer

Flaming Manholes in Harvard Square, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

on a bleary eyed trip during an all-nighter to 7-11 for orange juice and breakfast burritos I encountered the most exciting thing to happen in Cambridge for years: A flaming manhole on Mass and Dunster. The light rain, thick smoke and early-morning light made it pretty spectacular. The whole thing looked like a tire fire with the occasional burst of Black Cats. But perhaps the best part were the dozens of firemen and emergency personnel standing and sitting around nonplussed as they waited for the fire to go out on its own. Fire on the street + no one hurt = awesome. //extra bonus for having both cameras on me.

sections

partial model, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

This is how I'm dealing with curver's remorse…at least in 3D.

I'm slowly but surely pumping out my final production models for my second semester core class. The GSD has a lot of resources (CNC routers, multiple robot arms that no one knows how to use, plotters everywhere, 3D printers, and frickin' laser cutters), but when it comes to crunch time, everything is always taken. So you have to be crafty and slip in and get things done in the cracks and be ready to jump off of whatever it is you're doing and run down to get pieces of your model laser cut. It's insane and not conducive to sleep. But if all goes well we should all have very nice projects. Still being alive at the end would be a huge bonus too.

project #4

bottom of topo, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

I've finally completed my fourth project, and despite being confident in my ability to get things done in a timely and efficient manner which would allow me to sleep before the critique, I was definitely up for two days straight and working up until the last minute. I'll post more images as I sort through the rubble on my desktops (real and computer)

tranCISION

Escondido Freeway page, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

The book that I was part of, "Division & TranCISION," was published recently by McCall Design. The book turned out great and is a perfect finish to a great summer internship. I kind of want to revisit some of the ideas we explored during our research.

rebuilt

Door new, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

After much toil I have finally managed to reconstruct my first semester door project. I replaced much o what was wood with plexiglas. The plexi allowed me to be much more flexible and accurate with the wire and pullies. And actually I like the new version better than the first. Maybe it was good that the original broke…

Laser

laser hands, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

Last night I was supposed to be finishing up a map/model which is made of plexiglas etched on the laser cutter. Down in the basement there are three laser cutters (Ebony, Brunette, and Redhead), but two of them were broken to start with. Ebony for some reason only had AutoCAD 2004 installed without the plot driver for the printer, Brunette would not turn on if you paid it, and at the time I went down, there were some random Koreans cutting out plexi name tags and crosses out. Not wanting to cause a fuss I signed up for a later time, got some food, and came back later. When I got back I had to kick some dude off the laser and I set up for an easy and quick cut. However, when I tried to focus the laser I discovered that the bed would not move up or down and instead emitted a horrible grinding noise. So what did I do? I stuffed other pieces of material and a sketchbook under the bed to prop it to a more acceptable height. My first attempt was botched and while one corner was in focus, the other parts were not, and the laser burned but did not cut. Finally, the thirty minute job took around three hours. When I went to make my final two cuts to finish my broken door model, the laser wouldn't even move into position to focus. So I packed it up and went home, leaving the 0/3 lasers working. Why is everything broken?

bob's

bob's round 02, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

On my trip to San Francisco last month I made a pilgrimage to Bob's Donuts on Polk street. As usual it was delicious. So delicious in fact that I ended up eating around 10 over the course of 24 hours.

Broken

Pile, originally uploaded by neutralSurface.

So in preparing my door model for studioworks I got a little overzealous with the drill press and the whole thing imploded. I think it had a lot to do with not having nearly enough sleep while operating heavy machinery, but whatever. Anyway, all is not lost and I plan to rebuild over the weekend. Yay for more work…