Beeks

One of my good friends from college was recently featured in two design magazines and countless blogs regarding a recent exhibition he did in Chicago. All the press was focused on the lighting he designed using umbrellas, pretty cool stuff. Good work Steve.

The magazines are Urbis and IdN. Here are a couple of the blog posts so you can read more about it.

Inhabitat
Design Sponge

Home Hero

I'm becoming somewhat of a design nerd. I like looking at those hip design magazines and admire cool looking products. I happen to pass the fire extinguisher section at Home Depot and this item caught my eye. It's a fire extinguisher. It must be new they had it on sale and had a nice display set up, I also heard them talk about it on the overhead sound system. I bought it thought it would look very nice in our kitchen and plus it couldn't hurt to have a fire extinguisher around the house. I tend to get excited about new gadgets often, but never thought I'd be this happy and spend so much time admiring a fire extinguisher.

Looks like the Home Hero is only available at Home Depot, pick one up today - for safety's sake.

halloween craft

This past weekend our friends Jon and Jill had their annual halloween party which is always a good time. We had several good costume ideas but I also had a soccer game that night. Since we would only be at the party for an hour and a half, we didn't want to put a lot of effort and money into a costume. So we headed to the craft store and ten dollars later I had the materials for a pretty sweet costume.


I probably just like it because I made it from scratch but it might just be my best costume ever. I do need to thank my wife who handled the hot glue gun though. She also found a good easy costume. I think we did pretty good for a cheap, quick costume.

One of Many Long Overdue Posts

This is our apartment, we don't live there anymore. We lived there for two years and were fortunate enough to have a very spacious, modern apartment at a good location for a reasonable rent. We really enjoyed our time there and thought I'd share some pictures for those of you who never made it there. Unfortunately this tour is when the apartment was empty so you don't get our personal touches that made it home, but you know how stylin we are so I'm sure you can pretend. I'll be doing some posts about our new place and improvements we've made to it soon, so I thought it was only fair to showcase the Ovaltine apartment.




For those of you who are not from this area you may be thinking Ovaltine apartments is an interesting name - like the drink? Yes exactly. The main building was an old Ovaltine Factory which was abandoned ever since I lived in the area. It sits right next to a popular bike path, we'd ride it as kids and I remember feeling the incredible need to pedal as fast as I possibly could past the factory especially if it was getting dark. You see there were rumors and stories. Folktales maybe but also first hand accounts from friends brave enough to enter through the broken windows, armed with bb guns of course. The place did look spooky: broken windows, graffiti, unkempt premises. The stories say it was used for satanic rituals and it was haunted. Those who had been inside would testify to satanic markings on the walls, and further evidence. I never went in, I just whizzed by on my bike. I guess it was abandoned for about 15 years and in 2004 they renovated the factory and turned them into lofts, which are really cool by the way. They also put up about a dozen or so new buildings around the property. We lived in one of the new buildings so that should have minimized any hauntings. The large smoke stack still stands in the middle of the parking lot. I had to resist the urge to climb it many a time. I miss our Ovaltine apartment, it just wasn't our time anymore.

Interesting note: while looking online for old pictures of the abandoned building I saw that the property is now up for sale. I wonder what will become of it.

More Than Meets the Eye

As seen in a recent im conversation:

[15:36] Jon: did optimus prime call you?
[15:37] Bill: what?
[15:37] Bill: no
[15:37] Jon: weird
[15:37] Bill: what'd he have to say
[15:38] Jon: well i got a call from logan this mornign
[15:38] Jon: checked the vm
[15:38] Jon: it was optimus prime telling me that logan told him to call
[15:38] Jon: said that jill was a decepticon
[15:38] Jon: so be careful
[15:38] Bill: i KNEW IT

Transformers DVD comes out today, you can get in on the phone call fun here.

10 years already?

Had our 10 year high school reunion last saturday. It was nice to see people, many of whom I had not seen or talked to in a long time. Good to see what people are up to these days and who people married. Hopefully we can reconnect with people I've lost touch with and maybe make some new friends.

The reunion took place at McNalleys which is an Irish Pub about two blocks away from the apartment I used to share with some friends right out of college. We were there often hanging out, the bartenders knew us and took care of us. I was sad to learn that when we left and they closed last saturday, they were closing for good.

Here's to old friends, new beginnings and neighborhood hang outs.



Overheard at the reunion: "I didnt' know the Incredible Hulk was in your class" referring to an alrady tall classmate who grew about a foot and put on at least 100 pounds since high school.

Get to Know a Hero

Lt. Michael Murphy US Navy SEAL will receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, they don't give those out very easily. Lt. Murphy died in the mountains of Afghanistan in late June of 2005. He was leading a team of three other SEALs deep into enemy territory doing reconnaissance. Taliban forces found them and an intense fire battle ensued. The SEALs were greatly outnumbered but fought on for about two hours. Three out of the four died that day along with 8 more SEALS and 8 Army specialists whose helicopter was shot down while attemting to rescue the four. The One survivor was helped by a villager until US forces rescued him. He has since written a book about the battle. Read more about Lt Murphy here.



Ever since high school I've been fascinated with Navy SEALs. I often wonder if I could have made it through BUDS, the extremely rigorous training, not many do. I love to read about SEALS, watch movies about them and the specials on Discovery Channel etc. You don't often hear about their real operations though. That's why when this battle took place two years ago, it was reported in the media and provided an inside glimpse at the elite team. It wasn't very obvious, you still had to search for it but there was lots of information out ther on the battle and these men. For a while it consumed me. I was reading about their lives, memorials, honors, and later when The One survivor was made public details of the battle. There are rumors they might turn the book into a movie. I hope it honors these men well. If you look at my Myspace page you'll see under heroes I have listed PO2 Danny Dietz. He was one of the SEALs that died alongside Lt Murphy that day. I picked him because as I read about these men's lives I identified more closely with him, his family is even from the same denomination as my church. All of those men are heroes. PO2 Danny Dietz and PO2 Matthew Axelson, the other teammate that died received the Navy Cross along with Marcus Lutrell who was the lone survivor (whose twin brother is also a Navy SEAL), and now after a long wait Lt. Murphy will be recognized with the Medal of Honor. The medal will be awarded to his family on Oct 22 at the White House.

11 PULL

Going to Holland this weekend for the Pull. Here's this year's ralley video to get you ready for the action.

So I made these sunjars

IMG_0979
Originally uploaded by sr109

I originally saw these on some artsy blog like apartment therapy or cool hunting and thought they were cool. Soon there were instructions on how to make those yourself. I thought this would be a cool project and would be nice to have out on the table on the patio. They turned out pretty well. They collect the solar energy during the day and they have a photo sensor that turns the light on when it gets dark out. I'm still experimenting with different materials to better diffuse the light, but I'm pleased with the results. I've only made two so far but once I figure out what the best materials are I'll make the rest (i have enough materials to make 4 of these). I'll probably give some away as well.

Like Paolo

"I put some new shoes on and suddenly everything is right"

Got some new shoes this week. Puma Tempos, I think they're pretty cool, so they deserve a blog entry. I also had the song New Shoes, by Paolo Nutini in my head, so this is a good way to share both. Enjoy.

Puma Tempo Mens

José González - Sony Ad

I found a cool new podcast yesterday, it's called The Interface, it's music oriented. They bring in artists and interview them and they also play a few songs. They actually have a lot of my favorites artists on there already so I've downloaded a bunch of them and have been listening at work. One of the first ones I listened to was the one with José González. I first heard of him on NPR a while back and have enjoyed his music. In the podcast they mentioned his music was on a Sony commercial. I hadn't seen it before, but I'm not watching a lot of tv these days so I don't really know if its been running here or if it ever did. Cool commercial though, the clip I embedded is the extended version. You can hear more about him on his myspace page and his website.

bent wire art

I saw this guy's site on Make Magazine. He takes ordinary objects, bends some wire to go with them and creates art. He's got some pretty cool stuff. You can check out his site and creations here.

Everytime I see this one piece though, the song Atlas by Battles just comes to mind. I'll try to post the song along so you can hear what I hear when I look at this.

rolling shopping baskets

The other day Elizabeth and I stopped by a local grocery store to pick up a few items. We'd never been to this place before, but they had the coolest baskets. They had wheels and a telescoping handle. I had Elizabeth shoot some video of the fun.

he's gonna be a socca player

Photo by Elizabeth Serrano

So I'm on a soccer team this summer, The Henchmen. We have games once a week and we try to get a practice in once a week as well. My friend Kevin has been on that team and they needed more players so he recruited me. It's fun and its keeping me in shape, which is good because since we moved I have not been doing my running. I have a lot of excuses for not running, most are valid but in the end they are just excuses. I hope to get back into it because I'm way behind on the 100 mile challenge - of course it doesn't help that those other guys are doing marathons and triathlons and stuff.

Anyway the Henchmen are fun, I didn't know any of them before but they are cool, we're not the best team out there but we have a good time. I had to come up with a henchman name for the back of my jersey. I chose Dr Badvibes - anyone know what that's from?

Our next game is tomorrow, unfortunately with the US playing Mexico here at Soldier Field at the same time, a lot of the henchmen may be MIA. Thats the life of a henchman I guess.

A cicada in your hand...

Photo @ HappyMonkey

My little sisters graduated from High School last night, exactly ten years after I graduated from the same place. A lot of things have changed there, but a lot also remains the same. It was interesting to see so many of my classmates there. I guess the 10 year sibling gap was a popular one in our community. Anyway congratulations to all the grads. As their last act of defiance or just something to be remembered by each graduating senior handed the person who was handing them their diplomas a live cicada. We have the 17 year cicadas around right now and they are all over the place. They only come out every 17 years so the last time they were around these parts was the summer of the year most of the graduates were born, so it seemed like a good match.

I guess these cicadas will be around for a few weeks yet, you really can't avoid them if you are in an area where they are hatching. Luckily our subdivision is too new for them to be in our trees so we don't have any, but my parent's neighborhood is infested with them. They're all over the place and they're loud. I guess there is a lot of resemblance to high schoolers after all.

Moving Along

Photo @ mrjoro

Wow, it's been a while. We've been keeping busy. We bought a townhouse and are pretty busy with the move in process. We still have tons of boxes to unpack and lots of projects to do. Finally got the internet set up at the new place so I should be able to catch up on my blogs. I have my moleskine full of post ideas so I should get some posts off pretty soon. I also started a tumblr account, for quick easy posts, mostly things I will write about later on this blog. I'll probably post a link to it here soon.

Nike+ Second Run

Second day in a row running. Have I mentioned I'm out of shape? Although it does help that I just finished playing in a basketball league, so I'm not as bas as I could be. I'm still struggling though.

On my second run I ran further than I did on the first day. Even though my time is better than the first day, it shows I ran a shorter distance. Not cool. It seems I have to calibrate this thing. I was hoping it would be somewhat accurate out of the box, but I guess I'll have to do that before my next run. I also read that accuracy is imporved if the transmitter is actually inside the shoe like it was designed to be. Not sure if there's any truth to that - I'm pretty pleased with the outside of the shoe hack at least for now.

The 100 mile challenge is well underway but you can still join us, we're not too far ahead, a good week of running should catch you up.

more nike+

Like I mentioned I picked up the Nike Plus Kit. What I did not get were the nike running shoes that have the built in pocket for the transmitter. I followed the advice listed on the blog that John mentioned and bought a usb drive case. It works very good. I secured it to my shoe in between the laces and the velcro closure gives it some security.

Nike recently announced that all its running shoes will from now on be compatible with the transmitter, so that may be something to consider when buying new running shoes, but for now my homebrew kit is good enough for me.

First Run

So I ordered the Nike Plus Kit as described in John's blog. It arrived on Monday. I wasn't able to use it Monday or Tuesday because we were busy in the evening, but I went on my first run yesterday.

It was cool, I like having new gadgets so I was all gung-ho about going on a run. My first day's data is a little messed up because I didn't read the directions so I had to fumble with the ipod to figure out how it worked therefore the big drop in performance at the end of my workout. Regardless once I figure this out completely it will be a cool motivating tool. I'm currently involved in a 100 mile challenge with my friends just say the word if you care to join.

John's Challenge

My friend John has issued a challenge. John likes to run and he has one of those Nike+ devices which links up to your Ipod Nano and sends information about your run both to your ipod and your computer. You can upload all the information to a website where you can keep track and share that information with groups and friends. John's challenging everyone to get one of these things and we can keep track of how long everyone's been running. Basically we can race each other even though I'm in Illinois and he's in California.

By the end of the weekend John will have a marathon under his belt for the summer. He tends to do those things about every year, triathlons too, so it may be an uphill battle there. But I think its motivation enough to keep in shape. I already ordered the Nike+ Sport Kit and it should be arriving early next week. Care to take us on?