Blog of Josh Hall

http://blog.kidrobot.com/pencil-tip-micro-sculptures-by-dalton-ghetti/

This is nuts.  This guy can carve the tips of pencils into just about anything.  I can’t imagine how many times he’s had to start over after breaking off a tip.

how often do you talk to people on the phone?  Answer the question for the people that are not physically close to you or that you don’t see in person regularly.  I’ve always had the desire to see people, but I’ve never really wanted to talk to people on the phone.  I just really dislike the phone.  When you do catch up with these people, how long do you normally talk?

Don’t do or say anything you wouldn’t have your mother know.

I can’t take all the credit for the work involved in this one.  There are 9 32 x 32 stud plates (which makes this 30 inches by 30 inches!) that I divvied up to the 9 kids in my class this year.  I used software to break a standard image down to 96 x 96 pixels.  Each pixel then corresponds to 1 lego stud, of which there are 9,216.  I then took an output of colors in each of the 96 rows and imported them into Excel, where I could manipulate cell sizes to match up to 32 x 32 cells per sheet.  Each student just had a print off to work from and mark which studs they filled.  The print outs were just black and white, so they had no idea what they were making.  I really liked the concept of using excel as instructions to make large scale mosaics, so I’ll definitely keep that in my bag of tricks for future works.

There are about 5,000 pieces in the mosaic.  The kids had no idea what they were building collectively until the center plate was done and put next to 2 other finished plates.  I did end up having to throw in a bit of time since 2 kids missed class and I wanted to make sure they would be able to finish it in the last class.  Total labor hours is somewhere in the 20+ hour range.

click on the images for larger views. 

#84 – Life is defined by maintenance.

All you do in life is try to maintain it.  You eat for energy to do it again.  you sleep to do it again.  You work to pay for it again.  You do more or something new to make you happy…again.  Life becomes a huge cycle of maintenance.  Therefore:

#85 – The secret to life is to avoid or mitigate maintenance.

Set your bills to be paid automatically.  Eat well.  Learn to control your dreams so you’re not just sleeping.  Spend less so you need to work less.  Find out what makes you happy and keep on doing it.  Stop your mind from worrying about what you need to maintain in your house, but start accepting what doesn’t need to be maintained.

Kallie and I found a nice groupon getaway to the Lowes Annapolis Hotel.  We stayed a Saturday and Sunday night.  During the first night, there was an event held in the main atrium of the hotel.  I could imagine the noise from that event carried into the 6 floors of rooms that surrounded the atrium.  Our room was off a separate hallway though, so it was pretty quiet.  The room was great and Kallie seemed to enjoy that she got a nice robe with the room.

Breakfast was included with our deal, and it was fabulous both days.  Our waiter, Eric, had a thick accent, but he was extremely pleasant and fun.  Our vouchers were good for $40, but when our bill only came to ~$32, we were willing to just walk with that.  He suggested that he put on 2 bottles of Fiji water ($4 a piece) and have us just take it.  We appreciated the thoughtfulness and took his suggestion.  They also had a wonderful juice bar menu which included orange, pineapple, cranberry, strawberry, banana, and a bunch of other juices that you could ask them to mix together.  It was a great treat.

As for location, it may seem a little off the path from the main street and bay of Annapolis, but it was a nice flat ~1 mile walk.  The weather was great, and the walk was perfect to capture all the old buildings and history of Annapolis.  I pulled down an app which guided us around the major tourist sites of the town and provided some great historic background.

We weren’t in crab season, so we skipped that and just ate the Middleton Tavern.  The dining area is a little cramped, but the food and beer selection were pretty good.  They do have their own amber ale, which I do not recommend.  It was more of a light pilsner.  We also grabbed dessert at Reynolds tavern, which is a very historic and interesting building.  It was around 8pm or so on Sunday, so the place seemed a little empty, but as we left we noticed that there were people in each of the rooms of the building, as if they purposely gave each party their own private rooms since they could afford the space.  We really appreciated the feeling of having the place to ourselves.