What is art?

According to Merriam-Webster, it is "a skill acquired by experience, study, or observation." Therefore... I give you... ART. Check this out! Gymkhana 3

The Ultimate Wedding Videographers

These guys are amazing. They're name is StillMotion and they turn a wedding into a beautiful movie production. The emotion of the day is captured so perfectly, their work is very inspiring :-)

veronica and neil's same day edit // do you need a hankie? from stillmotion on Vimeo.

Final Prototype "Hang-WOW"

Prepare to be Hang-WOWed! Here's the final representation of our groups design. Refined to eliminate unnecessary materials and to save on final production costs, the prototype was tested with two pairs of pants and a jacket. The lightweight garment hanging system held up to the test with ease. I might actually make a few more to use at home!

So without further adieu... I present... dun dun dun. . . . . the Hang-WOW ;-)

Rain

A huge storm rolled through last night with some of the brightest lightning I've ever seen. It didn't make the same sound thunder sound (you know like a crack or a rumble), it sounded like bombs going off and progressively getting louder. boom-Boom BOom-BOOm-BOOOM!!!! The storm was about five miles away, but it was still really loud. I'd see a flash then about 5 seconds later, the booming would start. It was pretty nuts. I didn't get up and take any pictures of this storm, I'm still feeling a bit under the weather. But, it did remind me of some pictures I had taken recently of some storms that passed through, so I'll post some of those.

First, read Chase Jarvis' latest blog post "Take a Chance", as always he's inspiring and motivating. I especially like what he has to say in this one.

I moved our patio table out into the rain to catch the drops, then set up two SB-600 flashes to fire remotely to provide cross lighting. The Shot: Nikon D700, 60mm f/2.8 Nikkor Macro, ISO 400, f/4.0, 1/1,000 second.

Terra Cotta Pot 2.0

I like plants. I like to own plants. I like plants in various places around my house. I don't like watering plants. Usually I kill plants (accidentally).

I was figuring there's got to be a better way to maintain a plant in my house without it eventually turning into a brown and crispy mess. There's just so much going on that most of the time I forget to water any plant I own. Therefore I've just stopped buying them. We've had a jade now for about two years and it's great! It's still alive for a few reasons. Reason #1: It has the mentality of a cactus. Reason #2: Every so often we remember to water it. I like the jade, but I'd also like some other greenery in our house. So, the solution, as I see it is to redesign the flower pot. I'd love to tell you all about the features of this new pot, but I'm going to keep my mouth shut as of now because I think I may be on to something here.

~Nate

UPDATE: I finished my prototype and gave it a trial fill of water. One small error in 1 out of 12 cuts turned out to bring the whole thing down. Prototype 2.1 in progress.

IDEO aka ID Gods

IDEO
Location: Palo Alto, CA
Founder: Dave Kelley
Teamwork: Everyone is equal. Phsycologists, Linguists, Designers, and Biologists work side by side as one team.
Tactics: The team immerses themselves in the problem at hand.
Rules: Stay Focused, Encourage Wild Ideas, Be Visual, Defer Judgement, Build on Ideas of Others.
Motto: Fail Often to Succeed Sooner

Impromptu Trip to the Zoo

We generally don't plan too much on the weekends since they're usually spent working. So, as Labor Day weekend was approaching (with nothing but space in our calendars) we didn't even think to plan a little 2 or 3 day vacation somewhere. Friday night rolls around and we finally realize... "Hey we're free this weekend! What should we do?" We both thought of going to a zoo, and either St. Louis or Omaha became the destination of choice. We chose Omaha since it was a little closer. We left at 9 am and just got back an hour ago! Liam was EXHAUSTED! He was a great sport for 6 hours in the car and a long 13 hour day. We all had a really great time and Liam loved being close to all the animals and seemed especially surprised that a giraffe is so tall! Since in his kids books they appear to be the same size as the chicken on the next page. He got to stand about 10 feet from an 18 foot tall giraffe, and he just kept staring, pointing, and saying, what I assume was, "Wow! A giraffe is WAY bigger than a chicken!" Except it sound more like "Ga? Gaaa? Ca-coo ca-coo."

Well, anyways... Omaha was a really great zoo and we're very happy we had some time off together as a family and moreover got to spend it outdoors in this amazing weather!

~Nate