i really mean it this time. redux.

167

2010-10-06T16:21:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago my lovely, perfect, amazing bag started cracking. The leather literally started pealing away like those pictures of broken desert earth. This was, needless to say, very sad. But! Also an opportunity to try to make something even better.

I wanted a bag that would exactly fit everything that I considered necessary to carry around with me, but no more. The no more part is fairly key, as I will fill whatever bag I carry to capacity. I divided up my things into six categories, measured them and started modeling.

I cut the 167 mylar triangle inserts of the bag using my craftROBO. The trace paper patterns were also drawn using a pen attachment. Really, everyone should have a craftROBO. They turn impossible tasks into merely unreasonable ones.

After assembling the patterns and cutting out appropriately sized pieces from my leather hides, I coated each layer (yellow leather, mylar and blue-grey leather) in rubber cement. This, I believe, was the key step in the process. Mylar holds its shape perfectly, but is quite slippery and leather, while is has some grip, is very malleable. While this malleableness is great when trying to fudge a misaligned seam together, it would disastrous when multiplied over dozens of pieces. Laminating these two materials together, however, gave me stability and accuracy in the body of each piece along with some wiggle room around the edges.

Next came the especially tedious part! After letting the rubber cement dry — FYI, rubber cement adheres best when the surfaces being joined both have a thin, mostly dry layer on them — I traced the patterns onto the inner surface of the blue-grey leather using chalk transfer paper and a creasing wheel. I then placed the mylar triangles in their appropriate positions and coated their other side in rubber cement.

Once that final coat of rubber cement dried I carefully aligned and laid down the yellow leather layer. After taping down the paper pattern I cut through all layers with a rotary cutter, using a small exacto knife to get concave corners.

With the paper pattern still attached I sewed along the edges and between all the interior triangles creating a solid and well defined piece. This step went surprisingly fast and smoothly. The conventional wisdom is that leather will ruin a standard sewing machine. I decided to take the chance, as my machine is quite old and nearing retirement. However, sewing through two layers (with an occasional taste of mylar as well) didn't pose any problems.

Once all the pieces were complete I began assembly, using my paper model for reference. I divided the bag into several components: the back and flap, the bottom and strap, and the interior and front with the intention of assembling each region separately and then joining. That, as it turned out, didn't quite happen. Instead, I started slowing adding pieces together, trying to find the order that would keep as many seams as possible machine-sewable. Surprisingly, I was able to sew all but a single seam on my machine. I somehow managed to sew a 4 piece thick seam without so much as breaking a needle!

Below you can see the results:

In its first week of life my new bag has survived two rainstorms, the attentions of my office's dog and an MIA concert filled with enthusiastic people. Nothing has fallen out, and there has been very little wear. I think this bodes well for its future.

Finally, here's the paper mockup:

3d typography applet

2010-10-05T01:36:00.000-04:00

I have some new Processing goodness. You can play with it yourself here:

3d typography applet

I haven't had good luck running this in Chrome. Safari, IE and Firefox seem to work fine.

Or just watch some videos. I made examples of some of my favorite Dorothy Parker quotations.

horticulture

martini

passes

lingerie

novel

contacts!

2010-04-20T10:42:00.002-04:00

Back in my eyes!

That is all.

ipad!!

2010-04-11T17:24:00.000-04:00

I bought one! It feels like the future.

patience

2010-04-09T07:45:00.002-04:00

Ever since I got my Craft Robo I haven't been able to stop making things with it. Or offering to help other people make things with it. When I do offer (which is pretty much anytime I meet a new person) I usually get a polite nod and smile, and maybe some vague mention of a possible future project. However, when I asked Matt, my weekend lab TA, if he would like a custom sticker of some kind he had an idea right away.

Matt makes and produces music, and thus has amp cases. Amp cases are, apparently, pretty boring looking, and can certainly be enhanced by a funkily-shaped sticker. Matt made a preliminary typographic design in Illustrator which he sent to me for some refinement and, obviously, actual sticker production. When I cut my own designs I try, as much as possible, to keep all of the sticker-areas contiguous for relatively easy peeling and placement. Matt's sticker, however, was made up of probably thousands of discreet areas. I warned him this would make placement difficult, but he was determined to try. Frankly, I was skeptical of his ability (read: patience for tweezering and individually placing from a reference image image tiny fleck of sticky vinyl) to complete the task. Boy, was I wrong!

Here are the results:

I can't say I'd have the patience to do something similar, but I'm glad Matt was able to pull this off so well.

my eye! my eye!

2010-04-08T14:43:00.000-04:00

While many things have happened to me in the past month, some of which I plan/hope to actually post about, I think I'll start with my most recent adventure. After thirteen years of wearing contacts nearly every day, I have finally messed up my eye! And now I have an ulcer. IN MY EYE. It is very traumatic.

Like a responsible person, I changed my contacts last Monday, 30 days after putting them in my eyes. This usually works flawlessly, and, indeed, everything seemed to be hunky dory. At least until Thursday. During my electronics class my left eye started to itch, and then hurt a little. I concluded that I probably had an eyelash stuck somewhere. A quick check in the bathroom revealed no small objects, so I went back to lab. After class, I went out for a drink. In retrospect, this was probably not the best idea. As I sipped on my rum and coke and tried to make polite conversation my eye became more and more painful. Since I was having a good time otherwise, and *actually* doing something social, I ignored the growing pain coming from the left side of my face. We finished our drinks around midnight, and I went home to remove my contact.

My eye was disturbingly magenta. But, I thought, it must be a ripped contact. That had happened before. Take out the contact, eye gets better. Very simple. Out came the contact, and to bed I went. My eye, however, did not stop hurting. It just got worse. Around 3 am I gave up on sleeping and took some painkillers. About an hour later I finally fell asleep.

I woke the next morning to a crusty, slightly less magenta eye that really did not want to open, and had convinced my right eye of the same. Around 9:30 I managed to type out an email to work on my iPhone. That may have been the most difficult email I've ever written. I had no contacts in, and only my right eye would open even a little. It was probably horribly misspelled and then auto-corrected to the wrong words. I hope it said something along the lines of "I think I have pink eye, will not be in today." Pink eye seemed so logical. I'd had it before, it hurt, turned eyes red and made the gooey. It being easter weekend, I resolved to go to the doctor on Monday for antibiotics.

First, however, I needed coffee. I love coffee partially out of pure adoration, but also because I am hopelessly addicted to it. I don't have a coffee maker (yes, I know this doesn't make much sense), so I decided to go to the coffee shop across the street. It was extremely sunny out, so I would be able to wear sunglasses, thus disguising my disgusting eye. In fact, it seemed, from peeking out of my blinds, to be incredibly sunny. That was all the better, I thought, as it would make my wearing sunglasses while actually inside the coffee shop less odd. I put on my sunglasses, and walked down the stairs and out of my apartment.

I have never experienced more blinding light. Thank goodness I was wearing sunglasses over eyes that had been narrowed to slits, or I would have fallen over. At the time I thought I had a really bad hangover from my single drink of the night before, and that the pain in my eye was masking my headache. Later I learned that extreme light sensitivity comes with eye ulcers! So I am not as much of a lightweight as I thought. I managed to dodge all the tourists and students out enjoying what, in reality, was probably a moderately sunny day and not the surface of the sun, ordered my coffee without acting too freakish and returned to my apartment to hastily consume my latte and then instantly fall asleep.

The next day my eye was much improved. I could mostly open it and it was considerably less red. However, it definitely still hurt. This was probably not pink eye. I went in to work to try to make up for part of the day I lost on Friday. After I set up my scene for rendering, I called my parents to chat while my computer calculated millions of photon bounces. Of course, I admitted that my eye was messed up. And, of course, they told me to go to my optometrist *immediately*. I said I would go on Monday. Clearly, that was not acceptable, so I called and, magically, there was an open appointment! In half an hour! So, I scrambled to the T, rode to Harvard Square, and learned, from my lovely optometrist, that I have an ulcer. In my eye. My eye!

So now I have to put antibiotic drops in my eye four times a day, and I'll be wearing glasses for at least a few weeks. I tried to use my old college glasses, but the prescription was a little too off. So, with the help of my parents and a buy-one-get-one sale, I am now the proud owner of a new pair of glasses *and* prescription sunglasses. I go back on Friday to see if the ulcer has healed, so that I can switch to steroid drops which should help reduce the scarring on my iris. Hopefully I'll also have an awesome picture of my eye with a white spot on it to show you.

small project roundup

2010-03-09T14:25:00.004-05:00

My productivity continues! I've been doing a bunch of small, apartment-improving projects over the past couple weeks. I hacked apart my ottoman and filled it with bedding for my sleeper couch:

Created a new home for our many, many remotes:

Which reminds me, I need to play more Wii....

And! I've conned my roommate into letting me make things for his room too! This mail sorter is the first:

Vinyl records are terribly brittle and hard to cut. This design took a while to work out successfully.

Of course, I don't spend quite all of my time at home. I'm taking an electronics class at the Harvard Extension School. Soon I'll be able to make projects that have tiny brains of their own! This is a sticker I cut for my class notes binder and my very first circuit which compares the identities of two two-bit numbers.

the saga of my new couch

2010-03-01T21:20:00.003-05:00

My living room has a new couch. And a new chaise. And a new bed. My furniture is more than meets the eye!

And it has a great story.

My previous couch was a standard Ikea thing, slipcovered in red. The slipcover was the problem. It refused to stay tucked in, despite the giant metal bar that shoved in between the back and seat. This led to the couch always looking rumpled, and continually needing re-arranging. While Tom didn't seem too bothered by this, it was slowly driving me crazy. So I resolved to get a new couch. A designed couch. A couch that someone could sleep on. A couch from anywhere that isn't Ikea.

I began looking in a fairly lazy way, stopping in to furniture stores I would pass on the way to other places. I resolved to get a new couch as a birthday present to myself, and perhaps convince others to help contribute as presents. Early in my wanderings, and a month and half before my goal date, I stopped into Bo Concept. Nearly everything in the store was well outside my price range. With the exception, surprisingly, of the one couch I was interested in. I determined its price, shipping time (two weeks) and convinced the sales person to allow me to pick-up in store instead of paying for shipping, should I choose to buy. While this made the couch a bit less pricey, it was still more than I really wanted to spend in the most perfect of all possible worlds.

Around this time my father decided to come visit me. Many months earlier, when my sister visited, I'd bought an air mattress off Amazon. She, my mother and several of my friends' have used it since, but I was concerned about him sleeping on the floor with cold air coming in through the windows. However, as it was already too late to order my dream couch, I didn't see much of an alternative.

I had class the day my father was arriving. On the way I passed Bo Concept, and saw a sign advertising a sale on some floor models. They had had the couch I wanted, in the fabric I wanted on the floor the last time I'd been in, so I decided to check in after class to see if perhaps they were selling it. And they were! And it was on sale! And my father was arriving in two hours!

The store is only about three blocks from my apartment. As the couch is too big to fit in Tom's car, I decided to ask if would help my carry it home instead. So, about five minutes before closing and an hour before my father was scheduled to arrive, Tom and I bought and carried the couch, unwrapped, from the store to our apartment. We did stop a couple times, partially from the weight, but also so that we could sit on our couch for a moment in the middle of the sidewalk. We managed to get our old couch to the basement (and later sell it on craigslist) and our new couch up and situated before my father arrived, and took us out for a drink.

remodeling is noisy

2010-02-24T08:26:00.005-05:00

And it's happening next door. At 6:45 a.m.

I was amused yesterday, when they started after 7, and complained loudly about their wives/lack of decent lunches before take hammers and whatnot to the walls of the apartment on the other side of my bedroom wall. This morning, however, their banter was minimal, and they seem to be using quite a few circular saws and attempting to carve a hole in my actual wall. OK, they are probably not really going to make a hole, but my wall is certainly shivering in fear. So, here I am, at work, before 9! 9 in the morning! Quelle horreur!

Anyway, my brain hasn't quite caught up to the awakeness-level of my body, and I've been meaning to post some more of last Sunday's projects. So here you go.

Drawings!

Boy do I love my new pen attachment. I took some of my favorite photos, turned them into drawings, and plotted them with my Craft Robo. I quite like most of the results:

This image:

Became this drawing:

And this image:

Became this drawing:

~~I really need to take some daylight photos of the drawings.~~ And done! The set is here. Or get a better camera.

I also finished turning my failed knitted hat into at...er...thing. I'm not sure what it is, or what I'll use it for. But I do know it's done!

Just as soon as my living room is clean, it is daylight and I am at home, I'll be posting about the saga of my new couch. So, in other words, May.

one fish. two fish. red fish. blue fish.

2010-02-20T15:57:00.007-05:00

I have decided to attempt to keep something more complex than a plant alive. I know, I know my track record with plants is not exactly stellar. But! A few of them have lasted for almost a year now, and I feel it's time to move forward to slightly higher life-forms. After all, if I can run several computers on multiple OS's as well as a handful of mobile devices, how hard can keeping a fish alive be?

It seems pretty hard.

It's not that I didn't research, make sure I got appropriately sized containers, food and water purifiers. I did those things. I even managed to identify the cause of my second fish's death (fin rot) and attempt to treat it. Alas, it was too late. Newton and Leibniz have both gone down the drain, their rivalry unresolved. Although, Newton outlived Leibniz slightly, so I suppose he wins. As always. (I was rooting for Leibniz to come out on top this time.)

So back to the pet store I went. I suppose it is selfish of me to keep buying new fish and then having the die. Ah well. I just finished a bagel with lox, and that's much the same thing. I have named my new fish Euclid, as his container is decorated with various geometric symbols. He is far more lively than either of my previous two, and I have high hopes for his continued existence. He will play games with me!

I've also been up to making things, as always. I bought some sticky backed vinyl and a pen holder for my cutter. I've made quite a few stickers for my room and various laptops. There are plans for more, although I need to improve my placement technique.

I've also made portraits of my parents, although those were sent home and I have no pictures.

The Pearl art store a few blocks from my apartment has closed, a tragic event. But also an opportunity, for before it went, it sold off all its inventory at 75% off. Of course, I bought plenty. I am now the proud owner of a new mitre saw (my last was stolen with my other architecture tools when I graduated), lots of rubber cement, paint, brushes, material for my cutter and various other tools. I also found what I think is a tea rack on the curb. I sanded and painted it and it now holds many of my new supplies.

I'm having some thoughts about the design of this blog as well...it may be changing.

old projects and new

2010-01-07T21:56:00.004-05:00

I've been, er, busy for past few weeks. My unusual amount of productivity is catching up with me in the form of mild exhaustion, but before I fall asleep and an impenetrable forest of nettles grows around me which can only cleared by the laser cutter of my dreams, I thought I would share with the internet all my progress.

I've updated my portfolio website with my new professional, independent and craft projects from the past year. I even managed to dig out the source code for my project browser and updated that too. Yay data visualization!

When I was at home for the holidays I finally managed to photograph the remains of my childhood projects that were littering my old room and basement. Behold, the flickr set of my childhood:

I'm trying to get my mother to fire the large bust and mail it to me. I've been wanting to display that thing since I made it in 10th grade.

And, drum roll, I have made an etsy store! A keen observer may have noticed the link I added to the right a couple days ago. I am now selling three whole different types of things! Someone should buy one! Possibly you?

Etsy
Buy Handmade
jftesser

In any case, please wish my fledging entrepreneurial venture luck.

new years memes

2010-01-03T16:18:00.006-05:00

I had a small New Year's party to ring in 2010. The theme of the evening was memes, specifically those of the internet and pop culture varieties. I turned some of the more well know memes of the last decade into vectors and cut them on my new Craft ROBO, which, by the way, is about the awesomest thing ever. Check out the flickr set below:

wallpapers of 2009

2009-12-17T00:34:00.004-05:00

I've turned my photo based vector wallpaper into a set, so I can have OSX leisurely rotate through it while I read my greader and sew lots of xmas-present-related projects. Photos of those will be coming as soon as they've been received by their new owners.

screwdriver

2009-12-15T15:45:00.003-05:00

I got bored while my work computer was (and still is) installing Windows updates, so I took some pictures of the screen through the transulscent handle of a screwdriver which was laying on my desk. I think they look fairly pretty.

the new hotness

2009-12-13T00:11:00.004-05:00

That's what my friend in college called her new computer, and it's what I think every time I buy a new piece of electronics. And, boy, is my new baby hot. I am typing this on a brand new 27" i7 iMac. Holy crap, is it pretty. And fast. And big.

So big that none of my old wall paper will fit. So, in honor of my newest child/computer's ridiculous resolution I have made a new wallpaper. It's based off a picture I took in the Met this summer:

And, with help from my good friends Photoshop and Illustrator, turned into this:

i made some things!

2009-12-10T22:01:00.006-05:00

It's been awhile since my last project. Work has been keeping me pretty busy, both in terms of mental horsepower and actual time, so I've been less inclined to tinker.

However, I was inspired by my recent computer purchase's packaging (and, really, when am I not inspired by packaging?) and I've got the making stuff bug back. Below are my first two salvos. If I get what I want for xmas, there'll be lots more projects soon!

iDevice stands from corner packaging. I cut a channel down the center for the cord and painted the whole thing white to match my strict red/white bedroom color scheme.

A further mod to my Expedit "dresser". Formerly, this shelf had eight boxes in it serving as drawers, but what I really wanted was more hanging space. I unscrewed the top (well, actually the side) and removed the interior shelves on half the unit, reattached the end piece and put in a tension rod. Et voila, a place to hang my shirts!

things i learned this weekend

2009-11-17T10:49:00.002-05:00

1. The tasting menu at Craigie, while delicious, requires no eating for at least two days prior to attempting, instead of the one I had assumed.

2. If there is a hole in the bottom of your shoe, and you step in a puddle, your foot gets wet. And, since your foot is now encased in a wet shoe, it will not dry.

3. Urban Outfitters *still* has half off women's clearance...this situation is becoming serious.

4. Fresh Pond is considerably closer than I thought. However, the bus that goes there only comes once an hour.

things i learned today, v

2009-11-11T19:39:00.002-05:00

1. Places which do not sell cute shower curtains which do not clash with the colors of my bathroom include:
Harvard Square (Hootenany, Urban, Dickenson)
Cambridgeside Galleria (Macy's, Sears)
Downtown Crossing (Macy's, CVS)
Quincy Market (Crate and Barrel, Urban, some other random shops)
Kendall Square (COOP)

2. Places which do sell shower curtains compatible with my bathroom include:
Target

Guess where I went last?

3. Ways not to spend your Wednesday off: hunting for shower curtains.

At least my mother will have completely mold and mildew - free shower curtains when she visits.

things i learned today, iv

2009-11-09T20:58:00.002-05:00

1. Talking to executive customer service actually ends in the thing you wanted getting done, just like on Consumerist.

2. Crashes in software I'm not actually working on do not get solved by me rambling off the things I think might be wrong.

3. It is possible for my mother to figure out digital cameras, photo transferring, Picasa, Dropbox and gchat, and to use them all simultaneously. Color me impressed.

4. Google Sites has a 100 mb attachment limit. This spells trouble.

things i learned today, part iii

2009-11-08T15:57:00.002-05:00

1. iTunes will just break and break and break and break, but won't necessarily give you any clues as to why.

2. Organs are yummy.

3. As are chocolate truffles involving lemon and pepper.

4. Inconvenient things have no regard for when your roommate wants to go to brunch.

5. Writing about oneself is difficult and akward. Honestly, though, I already knew. It is one of the few constants in my life.

things i learned today, part ii

2009-11-05T23:51:00.002-05:00

1. Hair that has been dyed dark red for 6 years will refuse to turn strawberry blonde. Even after two trips to the salon.

2. Playing the Wii kill-people-with-swords game for 20 minutes without pausing after not playing for a month will give you a huge blister on your thumb. And by you I am, of course, referring to myself.

3. Doing a face mask really does make my skin feel better. I hope it's not temporary magic.

4. I don't remember hearing any of Lady Gaga's music before I listened to her album today. I have, however, read innumerable blog posts about her, and her lack of pants. The music wasn't actually bad.

things i learned today, part i

2009-11-04T17:46:00.004-05:00

1. Even if iTunes says it's synced your iPod, that doesn't mean your iPod will actually believe it has music on it.

2. Just because a Windows XP reinstall disk utterly fails to reinstall Windows on its own machine, doesn't mean that it won't install just fine somewhere else.

3. Copernicus (my bosses' dog) is both fascinated and threatened by light reflected off of CDs.

4. Some tiny graphics cards don't have fans. Instead they have heat sinks that look like gold anemones.

5. Also, Lauren made an awesome hat.

testing, testing. one. two. three.

2009-10-15T12:18:00.005-04:00

Attempting to embed a Wave using Madoqua Wave Bot...

And for those of you without Wave:

My Google Wave account finally appears to be (sort of) working! While I definetly enjoyed the Firefly-ness of the the "shiny" error, I'm glad it's no longer constant. And, thanks to the awesome bloggy bot that lets me turn waves in to blogpost, you, dear reader, get another lovely post from me. If this goes well, you may even get several. Congradulations to you. I'm not sure how to turn spellcheck on in here, so they may be a bit misspelled, but I will do my best.

In other Google-related news, I've helped my mother rebuild her website in Google Sites. I think it looks much better than her last one and, in any case, has quite a few new quilts. Check it out here. She's decided to get an actual domain name this time, but has yet to decide on a name.

I've also been being crafty, as always. I folded 100 Lang beauty roses. You can see the flickr set here, although I really wish I could figure out how to embed the slideshow :( Hopefully someone will write an extension soon.

I also made a Lego cake with my friend Mary for our boss's birthday. The results can be seen here.

I've done other things, like reorganize my kitchen with my roommate and thoroughly clean my stove, but, tragically, they don't have flickr sets. Since wave is still crashing about every 30 seconds, I think this about all for now. For anyone having the same "shiny" errors should check out this thread.

Coming Soon: my trip to Norway.

ahem

2009-04-22T22:45:00.004-04:00

Ok. So I failed to post for a long, long time again. I have been up to things though! I lost a job, got a (much better) job, moved, redecorated my apartment with actual furniture, bought a laser printer, joined twitter in exchange for Delicious Library, went to DIY for CHI, got some models printed by Shapeways, and built a fantastic Lego brownstone.

And, in case you ever wanted to know what one image of every project I found in my iPhoto library looks like:

One of Each from Jenna Fizel on Vimeo

now you know.

More posts to come soonish, as usual.

you really like me!

2008-09-05T09:49:00.000-04:00

Thank you internet! My latest instructable is featured, popular and in the weekend builder. I'm so proud.

instructable!

2008-08-31T15:30:00.000-04:00

I've just published another instructable. You can take a look here.

It documents a project I did as a present for Erik and Marty.

Enjoy!

cranergy

2008-08-28T22:38:00.000-04:00

My friend's boyfriend's sister was in the city this summer, interning at an marketing firm. Her team was pitching a redesign of Ocean Spray's new energy drink/juice Cranergy. She needed some help developing a design in Illustrator, and my Wacom tablet was just the thing. We also decided to visualize the design in 3D, something I do all day at work anyway. I managed to model the bottle from some eyeballed circles lofted together and slightly filleted. I then mapped the wrapper onto the middle portion and, presto, a pretty decent looking rendering. And the whole thing only took about ten minutes. Technology is marvelous.

return to acrylic

2008-08-28T22:29:00.002-04:00

One of my friends, who has, as far as I know, never crafted in his life, imed me a month and a half ago with a deep and overwhelming urge to paint a bear on a 3' by 4' canvas. In oil. After explaining to him about the time, effort, skill, and money involved in such a project, we settled for two small canvases in monochrome acrylic. Thankfully a medium that I've had experience with, albeit, not for many years. The results were...not terrible. He painted a polar bear modeled from a photograph (a very good first try) and I painted my impression of a single ostrich feather. While not up to my old standards, I don't think it turned out too bad.

yet more zipper blobs...er, i mean bags

2008-08-28T18:55:00.000-04:00

My sewing machine has seen a decent amount of action in the past half year. It's recently made a pencil skirt from some old jeans and a set of five pillows (two with flanges and two bolsters).

But, of course, its mostly been used for zipper bags. I departed from my curvilinear direction with my current bag. It's bottom is a Cheerios box cut into a rhombus sandwiched between two layers of felt. Its sides open completely to help me find phone when it gets lost. There are two pockets sewn into the top seam that just fit my phone and iPod.

I also made a new purse for my mother. Her black and red felt bag has been pilling for awhile now and driving my father nuts. So, new bag. I've been scared to try to force leather through my very basic sewing machine, but, while at Mood getting pillow fabric with my friend for her apartment, I discovered their section of light weight upholstery ultra-swede. I found a nice light gray and combined it with bright red zippers for a aummery bag. I also, for the first time, messed up while cutting the fabric. One side of the bag turned out much shorter than the other, making the zipper misalign. To fix this, I had to cut a deep curve into the short side of the bag (making the edge longer). And thus my first asymmetrical bag was born. I'm pretty happy with its final shape, and it's given my motivation to come up with a systematic way of producing asymmetric (but equal length) curves. The zippered pockets are an actually planned improvement.

I just made and sent out a gift package to (finally) thank Erik and Marty for, well, being them. Included in the box were these two belt-bags, specially sized to fit small electronics. Just thread a belt through the two slots and you're all set.

davita dialysis

2008-08-27T18:57:00.000-04:00

My family vacation this summer was a five day trip to Naples, Florida in towards the beginning of June. We stayed in a very nice hotel. We went kayaking in the everglades. I drank every night at dinner. My sister and I had mud wraps at spa.

And.

I saw a building devoted entirely to dialysis. Just check out that sign.

Oh, and here are some real vacation pics. Oh, the glories of nature!

My father looking stalwart.

My sister looking outdoorsy.

audacious

2008-08-26T23:03:00.001-04:00

I visited my family for the 4th of July. A couple of friends (who are a couple, and one of whom comes from hometown) were going back so I hitched a ride. While at home, I reconnected with my childhood stuffed animal-lizard, Bodacious. A little backstory here is probably necessary.

The Tale of Bodacious

In first grade, and every grade thereafter, my school ran a D.A.R.E. anti-drug program for a couple months in the fall. This particular year, we had a cute little frog mascot/puppet. The police officer who came in every week would have conversations and do role playing with it. That must have been really embarrassing for him, but we all loved the frog. Then, one day, the program was over and the frog went away. We were heartbroken. So I, in a fit of I-don't-know-what, volunteered my mother to make us a new frog.

My mother, who in addition to being a fine seamstress is also a wonderful person, agreed to make the frog. However, the fabric store did not agree to actually carry patterns of frogs. They did have a pattern for a lizard, so a lizard I was going to get. Along with my childhood babysitter and "adopted" grandmother, my mother sewed and painstakingly assembled my lizard out of stretchy gold lame (my favorite fabric at the time). It took them half an hour to turn each toe.

And thus Bodacious was born. Named for the old fashion Southern slang term and not the word (don't ask me why I knew about this at six, living in Pennsylvania), she was my friend and companion for many years and has mellowed to a faded copper color.

Anyway, during my stay at home I decided to bring Bodacious back to NYC with me. This gave my mother ideas, and, shortly after we all got back from our Florida vacation, she mailed me the original pattern. So, of course, I made a new lizard.

This one's name is Audacious (yes, cheesy, but it goes with the -acious theme). She's constructed from a layer of knit lace over top of raw muslin. I decided to use wooden balls for eyes as one of Bodacious' plastic ones has gotten gouged. Pics below:

And I discovered Find Edges. Finally, a Photoshop filter I don't immediately hate.

heels and paper robots

2008-08-26T21:23:00.000-04:00

My bank account eventually recovered from its trip to Brooklyn, and I've been putting it to use buying some cool stuff in Manhattan too.

Chinese Laundry shoes - Yes, I know, Chinese Laundry isn't the most amazing brand ever. But I've always wanted a pair, and just never actually bought one. Until my sister came to visit me and we went to DSW. Ah, peer pressure. Or sibling pressure anyway.

Japanese Paper-Tube Robot - This little guy came in the form of several thin, multi-colored paper tubes that I cut down and assembled by following the pictographic instructions. My mantis-bot turned out super cute and fully posable.

Stack of Translucent Drawers + Set of Wheels - Which I hacked together with the power of an exacto knife, my hot glue gun and some elbow-grease. Now I've got plenty of moveable space to put my surplus electronic bits and supplies. This has either helped improve/exacerbated my storage situation. In any case, it matches my tiny makeup drawers perfectly. And it's a good place to stick post-its.

But the pièce de résistance of my recent purchases is definitely my brand new United Nude Eamz shoes. They even have their own instructable. And the brand was started by Rem Koolhaus. Now that's my kind of shoe.

renegade craft fair

2008-08-26T20:49:00.000-04:00

Sorry, no clever title for this one. I think "renegade" is a cool enough name for a craft fair all by itself.

The renegade craft fair was held in Brooklyn a couple months ago. It's a really neat gathering of artists and small vendors selling some awesome stuff. Some of which I bought. See below:

The Weekend Store - Jewelry from old mechanical objects, like typewriters and analog watches.

Book Journals - Notebooks made from the covers, and a few of the pages, of old books. I found a records management textbook for myself and an old 5th edition webster's for my sister. She also has a (whole) copy of the dictionary that she "inherited" from my mother. But that's another story.

The Intuitive Gardener - Interesting hand painted jewelry.

And, finally....

Compai - designers of really cool remixed clothing. I bought this great off white vest-ish thing. I'll have to find a pic of it on.

From them I found out about Burdastyle. I still have yet to actually sew one of their patterns, but I have plans.

check out these curves

2008-08-26T20:29:00.002-04:00

I did a bunch of fun demonstrations at work exploring curved versions of the folded structures I modeled for Erik and Marty Demaine back at MIT. Below is duh! dun! my very first YouTube video, explaining how the forms are folded:

And a couple photos:

death of a plant

2008-08-26T20:25:00.002-04:00

I suppose I'll start by breaking the bad news. My plant died. I think it may have died almost immediately after I bought it, and it just took me awhile to notice since it dried in a very life-like pose. In my defense, there really isn't any direct sunlight in my room. My window does look out on to a tiny air shaft.

RIP Spiky Plant. I never could remember the name the guy at the flower shop told me was yours.

d-day

2008-08-26T20:00:00.001-04:00

Yikes. So it seems I haven't posted since I was 21. What follows (or, actually precedes, if you're viewing this post after the others are up) is my attempt at documenting the things I have made/found/done/bought over the past six months. My memory may not be spectacular but hopefully my iPhoto library will fill in the gaps.

Half a year is quite a while. Maybe this will turn into documentation week instead of documentation day. I'll do my best.

Oh, and thank you, if you're a person who still checks my blog after such a long absence. I really appreciate your constancy. Or, at least, the fact that you added me to your rss reader.

yea, it is risen

2008-02-24T18:49:00.002-05:00

My website lives! You can all once again visit my behemoth of a flash portfolio. It's developed a couple glitches since it was last deployed, but hopefully I'll have them worked out soon. I even bought my own domain name, www.jftesser.com. I actually have a web address of a reasonable length. I'm becoming such an adult.

This weekend's journeys into the internet yielded some interesting finds. I discovered netlabels (actually *free* and downloadable creative commons music). My favorites so far are from my mean magpie. Have a listen. Hurrah for lo-fi experimental. Also in the land of free is the film Four Eyed Monsters. I know this is old news, but it's a good movie so watch it (again) anyway.

They're now working on a net neutrality documentary. I hope they don't get trampled by horses or stoned to death by poker chips.

Save the Internet | Rock the Vote

And here's a shout out to my friend who works on this very cool blog. Because you know being endorsed by me means you've made it.

Oh. And my plant is still alive.

plant watch, day 1

2008-02-18T16:09:00.000-05:00

I have decided to take responsibility of a living thing. Daring, I know, but I'm starting slowly, with a plant. Not just any plant, of course, but an aerial: one of those pretty parasitic things that sit on branches and slowly suck the life out of trees. I'm hoping its somewhat evil nature will help it last a little longer in my care than its more considerate brethren. I've been meaning to buy myself flowers for about a month now, and, while I could have just dried the flowers and kept them in a vase, buying an actual plant attached to some dirt would be a better solution.

I'll try to keep you updated on its health. Theoretically, it just needs to be misted twice a week. I don't have a mister so I'm hoping flicking water at it will work just as well. I'm sure this is going to work out great.

On a side note, why do I always have to type in the garbled prove-you're-not-a-computer numbers twice? I can't be doing it wrong every first try. Blogger needs to fix itself.

round food is the devil

2008-02-17T22:46:00.000-05:00

I ate sooooooooooooooo much today. And almost all of it was round. I have bunches of cute zoloft rocks in my tummy. I need to get this under control. But, oh, the deliciousness of Asian junk food. I realized, yesterday, that as I live in NY, there just might be some boba lying about the place somewhere. So, as I mentioned in my last post, I asked yelp and, lo, it provided me with several bobalicious options in my vicinity. I chose TKettle which, I was happy to find, used actual tea and a good amount of tapioca, although maybe a bit too much ice. That was to be lunch.

And it might have stopped there, and been perfectly fine, if not for the fact that a little bit of Asian junk food lead me to think about more Asian junk food. So, after trekking back to my apartment, asking yelp about Asian convenience stores, discovering there was one half a block from the boba place (oh, that I had an iPhone) and returning to 3rd Ave, I entered M2M, possibly the most dangerous food emporium I have ever set foot in. They had bao. Lots of bao. Pork bao and chicken bao and veggie bao and red bean bao. And a tiny, cute microwaveable steamer for $7. No more waiting 10 mins for my buns to steam. Oh no. Now I can nuke them in under 2.

Of course, M2M is a whole store and offers non-bao related yumminess. Like seaweed salad for less than $4 (my one concession to non-roundness today) and all those delicious Japanese candies. Sadly, they do not have the yogurt flavored starburst-esque chewy things I love so much. I wonder if I'll ever see them again. *tear*

I brought this feast home and slowly consumed 7 bao (ok, at least they were the tiny kind) the seaweed salad, my enormous boba, and some of the lovely spherical truffles I got from Vosges for Valentine's Day. Which has lead to my current state of watching Korean romantic comedies while patting my bloated stomach. Oh, truly, I live a life of glamour.

On a more positive note, I've finally found a grocery store I actually want to shop at that contains foods I'll actual cook. Ahem. Well, microwave. And tomorrow's a holiday so there's still a chance to redeem this weekend.

ode to brunch

2008-02-16T21:35:00.000-05:00

Ok, not an actual ode. I'm not so good at poetry. But brunch is definitely my new favorite activity. Today's was shrimp and avocado eggs benedict over yuca hash browns with a mimosa. Oh so yummy. And much cheaper than dinner. There are quite a few advantages to living in the East Village but so far my favorite has to be all the restaurants that serve brunch. And the fact that they all have yelp reviews. Yelp really is amazingly useful for finding things. It's found me thai food, eggs benedict, zippers, yarn, and boba so far. I really should contribute some reviews to it myself. I'm really bad at actually participating in the things I use. But it's something I really, as a responsible user of the internet, should too. I should probably update my blog regularly too.

Since this post seems to be devolving into randomness, I'll add that I went to Century 21 again today (oh, the designer cheapness, downfall of my wallet) and got some amazing green/black/tan leather boots for $12.99. You should all go to Century 21 and buy things. Even if you don't live in NY. Just get on a plane. You'll make up for it with the money you save shopping there. Just take a look at their reciepts. It lists all the items you've bought and then, on the bottom in big numbers, the amount of money you've saved. According to my receipt, I saved $121.01 today. It's too bad I already threw it out. I think I should start saving them and make some sort of art piece. I think they say something interesting and complex about the American system of consumption. Hehe.

treasures from the internet

2008-02-16T21:02:00.000-05:00

Here's a quick review of the stuff I've dug up from bowels of google in the recent past:

Homeland Security Advisory Tower - Oh, Tom Ridge, I'm embarrassed you were my state's governor. At least some awesome public art got made out of it.

We Make Money Not Art - Yeah, I know I should have been reading this for years now. But I've finally got it bookmarked now.

Pre-Fab at MoMA - That friction-fit house project of Larry's just keeps going and going....I'll be there as soon as it opens.

PC Album Art Screen Saver - Now all you PC users can enjoy staring at your album art slowly flip over for hours and hours

Mandolux Wallpaper - This is some really excellent photography in nearly every resolution to fit even the oddest of desktops.

The Farnsworth Invention - A really good play which, sadly, has very little to do with reality. Oh well. Go guy from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

del.icio.us + Safari - Finally, a button for posting to del.icio.us. I can finally stop using Firefox.

Lego! - Makes me wish I'd brought my collection with when I moved.

NYC Subway for Google Earth - Makes Google Earth useful for those of us who enjoy public transportation.

HousingMaps - A super convenient way to find an apartment.

Subtle Safety - I bet this thing would be great for opening packages.

craft day

2008-02-16T20:19:00.000-05:00

I've managed to con my roommates into making a new project with me each weekend. It started with one of them asking me to teach him how to sew. So, out I came with my sewing machine and we made a lovely red maloo knockoff laptop sleeve. It's way cooler than the one I made myself a few months ago. Alas, I may actually have more laptop cases than purses. I just can't justify making myself another. We got to go to Mood Fabrics (of Project Runway fame) to buy supplies. Man, oh, man could I spend my whole paycheck there.

Since I learned to knit last December (although not purl) our next project was to make this really cool scarf thingy. I just finished mine today. Apologies for the clashing shirt.

I'm pushing for some modular origami next.

i'm a winner!

2008-02-16T20:13:00.000-05:00

No, really, I am. My zipper bag instructable won first prize in the Homemade for the Holidays contest. So congrats to myself. I've been making lots of these things and, obviously, giving them away as presents. Well, most of them. I may have kept three for myself. You can take a look at them on my instructables page or just scroll on down.

nostalgia

2008-02-16T19:25:00.000-05:00

While looking through an old photo album of my mother's before the holidays I found this amazing photo of myself in my all time favorite halloween costume, a blue crayon. I think I'm either 5 or 6 in the picture. My mother and the woman who babysat me would spend days sewing me a halloween costume each year. I've been a dragon, a tiger, Pocahontas, and Miss Havisham (though at the time I did think I was a bride), but none of those compares with my blue crayon.

Discussing this glorious example for my childhood weirdness with a friend led to the unearthing of the following photo of my long lost ninja turtle bed tent. As you can see, I was a great admirer of Miss Havisham's style as child.

I spent hours inside this thing counting all the Donatello's, Michelangelo's, Leonardo's, and Rapheal's. The tent was semi-transparent and there was some really amazing light inside it when my room light was turned on. While I'm on the subject of strange things I loved as a kid, I ought to include my 4th grade presentation on time travel. I actually researched this out and made all sorts of little explanatory animations in hypercard. The original file is, sadly, lost to the gods of floppy disks, but I managed to find a hard copy and make some scans:

well, the title of this blog does have the word redux in it

2008-02-16T19:21:00.000-05:00

So, it seems I've only updated this blog once since moving to NY. It's not that I haven't had ideas for posts. Or, honestly, time to write them. I just, er, haven't. But I am now! Prepare yourself for all the stuff I've done in the last 6 or so weeks, coming to you in a shotgun blast of posts.

boxes!

2008-01-06T11:28:00.000-05:00

I have finally and at long last moved. And, because of careful planning and many many trips to Target, I managed to bring almost all of the furniture and stuff I might ever need with me in my parents' van. Of course, there's always a couple more things that I just absolutely need. The nearest Target is in Brooklyn and I didn't feel like trekking all the way there for a couple tiny plastic drawers. I almost went to the Muji section of MoMA's Design Store (really, it's not that expensive, you just have to be able to convert inches to centimeters to figure out dimensions). I might go back for their tiny stapler.

The previous day I had come across a wonderland of plastic, wire mesh, canvas and cardboard called The Container Store. It's two floors of every kind of box, closet organizer, drawer, file and other storage media imaginable. I picked up four of these beauties for my horde of makeup and jewelry. Boy do I love translucent plastic. Check out this stuff too:

A tiny version of the lasercut acrylic chandelier

A create your own size bag dispenser

A translucent plastic chair

And, of course, more delicious cube storage

back from ny

2007-12-22T10:29:00.000-05:00

While I was there I (of course) stopped at the MoMA design store. And, well, I found some things I just couldn't not buy. My favorite by far is this sign by Richard Tipping. I love signage to my very soul and a bit of paranoia is good for everyone.

Sadly, the artist's website is under construction but there's still enough there to get a flavor of his work. Hopefully the online store will be back soon...I need to decorate my new apartment.

meat flaps

2007-12-16T11:13:00.001-05:00

I love this short story! Possibly you will too. Make sure you stick around for the credits, they're v nice.

phear of fones

2007-12-14T15:26:00.001-05:00

I've probably mentioned this before, but I hate phones. I hate calling people I don't know. I calling people I do know. I hate answering calls. I'm not sure if I'm afraid of the connection cutting out or of misunderstanding someone/being misunderstood, but phones just freak me out. This is probably why I like texting so much. They also, apparently, make me sound like an idiot. And I'm pretty sure I'm not an idiot.

I applied for my first credit card yesterday. (Hurrah for more debt! I feel so American.) And, stupid me, I tried to use fancy settings on my new phone like mute and speaker while I was looking for paperwork. My call may have been recorded. So perhaps it will give people a laugh for years to come. I'm also apartment hunting, which means calling people and explaining who I am, what I do, and why any sane person would want to live with me. Not an easy task. And it's made more difficult (or so I'd like to think) by the fact that my job is terribly obscure and nearly impossible to explain without visual aids to anyone outside the design field. I must simply learn to deal.

Your musical reward for reading my complaints this time is Radiohead covering Bjork. Wow. I've got to write that again. Radiohead covering Bjork. Magic.

the hits just keep on coming...

2007-12-10T18:32:00.001-05:00

Following close on the heels of the raging success of my latest instructable, my lovely paper folding applets have been linked to by the Fitful Flog. This is, of course, awesome. But my MIT webspace runs out in January and my website will go poof. I think it's time to get serious about choosing a new host.

I've been doing a lot of holiday shopping of late and it got me thinking about an old (possibly true) story that my 10th grade history (during our local history section) and science (during our topography section) teachers told my class. My city used to have a lot of mob money running through it. Among other things, it supposedly funded the design and construction of our local mall. If you look at a map, the mall looks suspiciously like a handgun pointed pretty directly at city hall. Thanks to the wonder that is Google Maps, the story seems to be true. Take a look for yourselves:

View Larger Map

delicious

2007-12-08T13:57:00.002-05:00

I finally got to upgrade my old phone. I hate phones, so I didn't really expect to be excited by this (I assumed anything short of an iPhone would leave me frustrated at best) until I saw the Chocolate's scroll wheel. It lights up. It follows your movement. It's shiny. And the other keys make the phone vibrate ever so slightly. Yummy haptic feedback. And I found a Psapp's Hi as a ringtone. I still don't know if I'll like actually calling people anymore than previously. But I do enjoy scrolling through my contact list. I just hope I don't ruin the slide mechanism.

I've also found a really excellent lamp. I sincerely hope whatever apartment I find is in need of a light fixture. Design shopping websites are dangerous things.

I can add another notch to my baking-bedpost. I made banana bread all by my lonesome yesterday. Must get all this cooking out of my system before moving to Manhattan.

Here's your reward for reading this post - my ringtone.

consonants & vowels

2007-12-06T22:55:00.001-05:00

I have a new favorite song, and you should all listen to it. Regina Spektor's amazing.

This song isn't actually from Soviet Kitsch, it's from Songs. But you should go get Soviet Kitsch too anyway.

That is all.

:D

2007-12-06T09:24:00.000-05:00

My new instructable got featured! I'm much too proud of this. Hehe.

we apologize for the delay

2007-12-05T22:20:00.000-05:00

I've been busy, although that doesn't really excuse a nearly month long absence. So I'll try to catch all you wonderful people up on what I've been doing.

In the past month I've put up Christmas lights, flown to London, baked crescent rolls three times, cookies twice, folded things from the Fitful Flog, started Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, found a Wii for my sister's Christmas present, found many amazing design shopping websites (which you can visit for yourself by checking my del.icio.us) and taken a job in NY, thus ending my search for employment.

Also, check out this pic of a snowman ornament falling to its death.

And, drum roll please, I have a new Instructable. Check it out here.

Now to find an apartment.

the trouble with timing and travel

2007-11-09T19:34:00.000-05:00

And, no, it's not the same problem. Really, they each have several. Anyway. That really is a terrible entry title. And a poor Star Trek reference to boot. I should come up with something better. Damn my brain.

My watch looks even awesome-er thanks to Photo Booth's comic book effect.

What was this post supposed to be about? Oh right, watches. So. My lovely metal digital Swatch lost its faceplate a couple months ago. Ever since I've lived in fear of accidently forgetting to take it off before stepping into the shower. I love this watch. It's silver. It's thin. It's digital. I refuse to read normal clock faces. There's no need for that anymore. Numbers, people, numbers. My watch still looks great (possibly even better than when it had a faceplate as it's no longer scratched and you can see some of its guts), but it gets slow after a couple weeks and I just know I'm going to drown it someday soon.

Then, a miracle happened. Or so I thought. I was walking around Times Square on my way to dinner with a friend a couple weeks ago and I pass the Swatch store. They should be able to fix Swatches, don't yo think? And tiny plastic disks shouldn't cost very much. But, oh no. Not only can't my watch be fixed at the store, Swatch doesn't even make replacement faceplates!

So now I have no choice. My current watch's days are numbered. I'll need to buy a new one. I did a great deal of internet-scouring and found this super amazing company. Now, I know what I wrote just a couple paragraphs ago about demanding readability of my time telling devices. But.....just look at the amazing hotness of this watch. It may make me a complete watch hypocrite but, as soon as my Swatch dies, I'm buying it in clear. Yum.

And now for carry-ons. I'm going to London on Sunday for a few days to hopefully further my quest for employment. This time I am not going to deal with baggage claim. It's frustrating and customs at Heathrow takes long enough by itself. But I always check because, well, I need my shampoo and eye cream. I was at Linens'n Things the other day and I saw this cute carry-on kit filled with tiny clear bottles and containers. I'm a sucker for containers in general, but miniaturize them and I'm almost certainly in love. Now I have an excuse, er I mean reason, to buy them. I spent a good hour today slowly pour body wash & co into them. Hopefully I get through security!

hair adventures, part iv

2007-10-30T13:33:00.000-04:00

I've been busy the past couple weeks. I went to NYC (and may soon be moving there, hurrah!). I finally realized my dream of touching an iPhone and bought the coolest expanding file I have ever seen. It's from Target but I can't seem to find it online. So here's a pic instead:

I also finally cut and dyed my hair like I've been threatening to do for several weeks. I chickened out about getting bangs but I did cut off over a foot of hair and donated it to Locks of Love, the organization that makes wigs for cancer patients. And then my mother dyed it purple for me. She's a very nice mother.

front

and side

Let me know what you think of it.

crafty

2007-10-18T00:57:00.000-04:00

I've been making a lot of things lately. Cookies, for example. Other things too. Like a website to showcase some of the really incredible quilts my mother has made over the years. And I'm very nearly done with a new 3d purse inspired by a Hobo International bag I saw last month.

I went beach glass hunting on Presque Isle (the same place I went canoing not so long ago) yesterday and, while I didn't find much, I did manage to put together a necklace from a tiny piece of driftwood and a white piece of glass. I sealed and strengthened the wood with clear nail polish.

music, and not much else

2007-10-13T20:11:00.002-04:00

I haven't had all the much to report in awhile. I'm working on a purse based on a HOBO International bag I saw in State College about a month ago, but it's still not finished. Of course, I spent the 10th repeatedly listening to In Rainbows. Delicious.

The film Across the Universe finally went onto wide release yesterday so my sister and I went to see it. To my surprise, my favorite comedian, Eddie Izzard, was in it doing Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite

Amazing. Just truly amazing. Too bad the YouTube isn't high res. Go see the movie for that.

I've also been working on a website for my mother which I hope to have finished and approved by her soon, so look for a link possibly next week. Sadly, no progress on the job hunt front. I think it's time for a new wave of applications.

radiohead! woohoo!

2007-09-30T22:16:00.000-04:00

Ok, so this post was going to be titled something vaguely witty about my laptop case or Sherlock Holmes or possibly the intersection of the two. However, Radiohead's new album comes out (at least the downloaded version) on 10 October and you can pre-order on their website now! And, apparently, you can name your own price for the download. Fascinating what can be done without record labels.

I went to a tiny town called Mayville yesterday and picked up a complete set Sherlock Holmes stories (about 1300 pages). I've apparently missed both the first two serialized novels and everything after the Hound of the Baskervilles. But that will soon be remedied.

And, drum roll please, I finally finished the laptop case I've been working on forever and ever. This thing took so long because I not only hand sewed the the handle bits but I also had to do all the trim by hand and made an extra small bag for my external hard drive and power supply. All told, I spent about $19 on it and I think it turned out pretty well. The photo album is here.

merrily, merrily, merrily

2007-09-24T02:39:00.000-04:00

I finally went canoing yesterday! After months of it raining and things like grocery shopping coming up my mother and I made it to Presque Isle and rented a canoe. It's a good thing we didn't go any earlier in the year. We were only out for two hours and my incredibly white skin turned pink, ruining my nearly eight years of continuous chalky paleness.

We went in search of eagles we never found, but we did take a bunch of pictures of a blue heron. You can see them and pics of various flowers and weeds here.

I took some videos too. Some of them were even artsy. Here are the best.

Paranoia

2007-09-17T21:15:00.000-04:00

I've become obsessed with a scary combination of Google Analytics, my e-mail, and the hit count on my instructable. Sadly, only the last one is in anything like good shape. I finally understand all the people I know who are obsessed with checking facebook. I now *have* to check to see how many hits my website gets at least three times a day. And if the hit happens to be from NY or the UK I get all worried over time on site. This is not healthy. I managed somehow to get myself off meaningful quantities of food, I ought to be able to get myself off of this. Oh firms, please just e-mail me rejections and put me out of my misery! I've only gotten responses (sadly negatives) from two out of thirteen (well, fourteen if you count the Apple one that still isn't done). This is what I get for applying to so many.

For extra fun, and to distract myself from my job search, I put a tracker on this page so that means, yes, I know you are reading. I may not know who you are but I know where you live!

In moderately healthier behavior today, I started this instructable. I adapted it a bit and ended up adding a bunch of sewing. I stopped when I got to the hand sewing the handle seams together. Hopefully I'll finish tomorrow. How do I manage to make even my fun activities tedious and time-consuming? I could've written more cover letters.

Wow, this post is super depressing. I should leave you with something happy. Hmmmmm. I guess I'm updating my blog regularly. Aren't you proud?

Instructable!

2007-09-16T14:04:00.000-04:00

I did it! Woo hoo. Check out my brand-spanking-new instructable. I totally rock for doing what I said I was going to. I've also decided, in addition to my million and one computer-y architecture firms, I'm also going to apply to Apple. I even found three whole jobs I at least sort of qualify for. So perhaps my enduring love for my macbook pro will turn into something more. Now if only I could find that hypercard presentation I made in 4th grade....

I also cleaned my room. Like, picked up all the garbage in it and everything. Aren't you amazed? I also made my bed. Although, admittedly, it was mostly for this picture. I really don't get why we, as humans, make beds. We're just going to sleep in them again in 18hrs. I think it's really a lot of wasted effort. If no one made his/her bed maybe we could use all that extra energy to cure AIDS or light a lightbulb for a year or something.

I need to find out how to make an accelerometer for my sister's science project. Oh the days of PJAS. When the world was simple and all I wanted was to get spiders high on herbal supplements.

trying yet again

2007-09-13T02:06:00.000-04:00

Sooooo.......the whole iWeb blog thing didn't so much work out as fail miserably. It's not entirely the fault of my laziness either. The iWeb publish-to-folder export stopped working for my blog so I had to keep it up by hand and lost my rss feed, leaving me annoyed and cranky. Hence the lack of posts for, um, a month.

Stuff has happened to me in the past month. Perhaps not a great deal of stuff but, still, some happenings did occur. I went, for example, to Panama Rocks and climbed about on a bunch of glacial rock formations like I did when I was a kid. I took loads of pictures, discovered the panorama feature on my digital camera, and made a webalbum of them all.

I also, at long last, finished, printed, and actually *gasp* sent out my portfolio. This happened just this weekend so hopefully I'll start hearing from places soon. Pretty please.

My little sister got her license on Saturday and she's now driving all her friends around town and even planning on getting a job to be able to afford the insurance and gas for my mother's van when she gets a new vehicle next year.

As always, I've been scouring the internet in search of cool/time wasting websites. You can check out my latest finds on my links page. In super exciting internet news, Rhino is finally being developed for OSX!!!! If you're as obsessed with it as I am (and a mac user) you can apply to be a beta tester. They let me in, so obviously their standards aren't that high ;)

I'm sure I've done other things in the past month but I can't seem to think of them right now. For now I'm off to fulfill my next goal, making an instructable.

trying yet again

2007-09-12T22:39:00.001-04:00