Sunday, February 19, 2006

Colorado Sky Shot


Another shot from the Snowmass trip a month ago. Nice colors around sunset, especially when snow is present...

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Windy West Coast


Here is a shot of my Dad on the Oregon Coast sometime last May when we all joined together for Julia's graduation. I think I read somewhere that Captain Cook stopped here to marvel at the coastline and cut a few trees. We stepped out of the truck long enough to take a few shots and then we were out - cold, windy and rainy - I LOVE OREGON!

Frank's Dream



Here is a shot of the Frank Lloyd Wright tower in Scottsdale, Arizona. From what I heard, it was concieved by Frank on paper but never commissioned for construction until a few years ago - many years after his death. I have to say this is probably the coolest tower I have ever witnessed. At night, the color is absolutely intese. Located on the corner of E. Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard and Scottsdale Road. Sorry the night shot is a little blurry :)

Feel the Warmth


The setting sun near Venice Beach, California. The Beach happens to be really wide and flat, and there is the sidewalk that goes for miles. A little further south and you get "Muscle Beach" where Arnold lifted weights in front of crowds back in the day. Who would have thunk he'd be back as the governator?

Smooth Metal


Here is the recently constructed Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. Apparently, after they first constructed it, it reflected so much sun into a nearby freeway (probably the 110) they had to buff the sheen off of it in certain parts. Its still really shiny, though. Everytime I see it I want to slide down it on my arse. The inside looks pretty dope too, although I haven't heard music there YET...

Find the Flower!


Here it is, your moment of ZEN. I think I caught it at the Botanical Gardens with my Canon.

Not-So-Blank Wall


My sister took this shot somewhere in New York - maybe around Washington Heightz? I thought the building looked really cool with its composite rectangles and painted-over graf. By the way, what happened to the street sign in the foreground? And who would waste a great tire like that?!

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Simon's Towers


This shot portrays one angle of the Watt's Towers built by Simon Rhodia when I visited with some of my family about a year ago.

"The sculptures' armatures are constructed from steel pipes and rods, wrapped with wire mesh, coated with mortar. The main supports are embedded with pieces of porcelain, tile and glass. They are decorated with found objects: bed frames, bottles, ceramic tile, scrap metal and sea shells. Rodia called the towers Nuestro Pueblo, meaning "our town." Rodia built them with no special equipment or a design, working alone with hand tools and window-washer's equipment. Neighborhood children brought pieces of broken glass and pottery to Rodia in hopes they would be added to the project, but the majority of Rodia's material consisted of damaged pieces from the Malibu Pottery, where he worked for many years. Green glass includes recognizable soft drink bottles, some still bearing the logos of 7 Up, Squirt, Bubble-Up, and Canada Dry; blue glass appears to be from milk of magnesia bottles.

Rodia bent up much of the Towers' framework from scrap rebar, using nearby railroad tracks as a sort of makeshift vise.

Other items came from alongside the Pacific Electric Railway right-of-way between Watts and Wilmington. Rodia often walked the right-of-way all the way to Wilmington in search of material, a distance of nearly 20 miles (32 km).

Rodia did not get along with his neighbors, who allowed their children to vandalize his work. Rumors that the towers were antennae for communicating enemy Japanese forces, or contained buried treasure, caused suspicion and further vandalism. In 1955 he gave the property away and left, tired of the abuse he had received. He retired to Martinez, California, and never came back. He died a decade later."

- everyone loves WIKI !

Olive Trees


Ok, so now I have a thing for VanGogh. Here is another one: Vincent van Gogh. (Dutch, 1853-1890). The Olive Trees. Saint Rémy, June-July 1889. Oil on canvas, 28 5/8 x 36" (72.6 x 91.4 cm). Mrs. John Hay Whitney Bequest on display at MoMA

"In late April of 1889, about a year before his suicide, Van Gogh left Paris for Arles, entering the asylum at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Rémy. By the end of the year he had painted fifteen canvases using Olive trees as a subject. "They are painted in shades of silver, sometimes bluish silver, sometimes greenish, and in tones of bronze. Or else they stand there whitish against the yellow, or against the violet and orange-tinged pink, or even with earth of a reddish ochre colour. Very difficult, very difficult," he wrote in a letter." - lifted from here

Exploding Volkswagen


This was quite a sight to see in a museum! (That's me in the green shirt) I found it at the Museum of Contemporary Art - MOCA - in Los Angeles. I think its somewhere around a 1972 Super Beetle, but I'm not positive. I remember there was a lot of bondo work on the body, but it still looked amazing to see the interlocking complexity of a simple machine like a VW. My sister took the shot, my mom is on the edge.

Botanical Gardens


This shot was taken when my mom and I took a trip to the Boyce Thompson Southwestern Arboretum in Superior, Arizona. I am not sure what kind of plant this is, but it definitely caught my eye..

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Santa Monica Pier


Annie and I went to Santa Monica this past weekend to see the on-going Ashes and Snow exhibit. While there, we strolled up the pier to check out the view. Here's a shot of the waves underneath ...

Happy Birthday Darwin!


poster found @ http://www.cfiwest.org/calendar/darwinday06.htm

"There has been constant controversy surrounding the ideas presented by The Origin of Species since it was first printed in 1859. Since the early twentieth century, however, the idea that biological evolution of some form occurred and is responsible for speciation has been almost completely uncontested within the scientific community.

Most controversy over the theory has come because of its philosophical, cosmological, and religious implications, and supporters as well as detractors have interpreted it as generally indicating that human beings are, like all animals, evolved, and that this account of the origins of humankind is squarely at odds with many religious interpretations. The idea that humans are "merely" animals, and are genetically very closely related to other primates, has been independently argued as a repellent notion by generations of detractors.

The questions raised about the relation of evolution to the origins of humans have made it an especially tenacious issue with some religious traditions. It has prominently been seen as opposing a "literal" interpretation of the account of the origins of humankind as described in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, a religious text containing the corpus of Christian Mythology. In many countries — notably in the United States — this has led to what has been called the Creation-evolution controversy, which has focused primarily on struggles over teaching curriculum. While many other fields of science, such as cosmology and earth science, also conflict with a "literal" interpretation of religious texts, evolutionary studies have borne the brunt of these controversies." - lifted from Wikipedia


Here is the Beardie


This is a picture of our new Bearded Dragon - some people are calling him "Curtis".


Fast as Lightning!

Here is my sister, Julia, in her new track suit. She happens to be holding some type of hybrid-color rose found in front of my house in Altadena. This was sometime near the end of December when my Mom visited. I think she went running shortly after this picture was taken :)

Cool Sky

This is the sky in Snowmass, Colorado a few weeks ago. I met my family to do some riding together on the slopes for the better part of a week. The shot was taken from our balcony - I just thought the blue sky looked really cool through the Aspen trees...

Mulberry Tree

"Vincent Van Gogh painted this picture of a mulberry tree in stable periods between fits of epilepsy, while at the Saint-Remy asylum in 1889. The paint has been applied in an extraordinarily frenetic manner, both with brush and with palette knife, twisting and turning the brush, heavily loading it with paint. The result is very spontaneous, but still reflects Van Gogh's great understanding of complementary colour. Van Gogh considered this to be his best rendering of a mulberry tree, according to comments in letters to his brother Theo and his sister. The original resides in the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA."

Zeman on Grass


So my friend Brian was in town a couple of weeks ago, and I caught this shot while we were in Andre's front yard in Covina. He was stylin' on the grass so I snagged a quick shot of his clean kicks...

Ciclo de la Muerte


Bicyclist, Day of the Dead: from painted plaster, Mexico.
"A fascination with death is the subject of a great deal of Latin American folk art. According to popular belief, the departed return to earth each year for the Festival of the Dead. All Soul's Day has been held on the second of November since the late 13th century. Death is often depicted in a humorous manner. Skeletons are used with irony to show the absurdity of the human condition. Death is represented in all materials, from wood carvings to pottery to Bread of the Dead and candy skulls. In folk art, the dead engage in common daily activities like riding bicylces or getting married."

Welcome to the Universe..


Greetings! This is where my Mac meets your Universe. Here, I can upload photos, share news about my life, and generally make an online presence for the fun of it. Feel free to post whatever you want and contact me freely ,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º