Where Curling Stones Come From. Scotland, of course: Fairy Rock.

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To quote Jesus, "It is finished." Except I mean our bookshelf proje ct & not dying for the sin of all humanity.

investigating the origins of holey cheese

so, my favorite living architect is peter zumthor, a swiss architect. my favorite architect from the past is le corbusier, also swiss. rudolf steiner, a philosopher/writer/architect created a kind of architecture based on his philosophy of anthroposophy that is of great interest to me and all of his buildings (15) were built in the town of Dornach, Switzerland.

anyway, switzerland is my personal architecture mecca.

i just received word that i have won a travel scholarship based on a proposal I wrote to conduct independent research in Dornach, Switzerland on the work of Rudolf Steiner and the evolution of building in the area, as influenced by his anthroposophical style.

point is - we are going to switzerland for about 2 weeks this summer! i am going to get to experience some of my favorite works of architecture in person!

curiosity killed the bobcat

so, this is my latest studio project. we had to build a cabinet of curiosity that considered their traditional uses and applied our interpretation to what would be equivalent modern objects of curiosity. my cabinet features objects similar to those commonly seen in curisoity cabinets form the 16th century (objects found in nature) and juxtaposes them with what i consider a modern marvel, western medicine. each element in the cabinet - the bobcat skull, rhea egg, goat horn, crystal, and shell - are traditional components of eastern medicine. the cabinet opens to reveal that all of these objects have been cut in half and are behind glass, containing their western medicine counterpart on one side of their interior cavity.

this project will ultimately inform designing architecture around objects and/or a collection, as is often done in the design of museums.

The Times They Are A'Changin

How amazing and surreal and satisfying must it have been for Dylan to play for and shake the hand of our first African-American President after all his songs and after what he's been singing for for the past 50+ years?

we are the...pathetic

so, if you haven't seen the new we are the world video to benefit haiti - watch it now! it is on hulu. so entertaining but, i warn you, so damn depressing. it may be a bigger disaster than the earthquake itself.

now, i am all for good causes. i have worked in the nonprofit world for years and have been part of all kinds of less than glamorous events that had good intentions but sometimes didn't come off particularly well. but this whole video (AND THE LINE-UP OF "MUSICIANS") is absurd.

compare the line-up of the original we are the world to the new one and see if you don't do the impossible and end up longing for the '80's. oh, and don't worry - to underscore just how bad things have gotten in music, there is plenty of auto-tune going on. the new line-up seems so much less moved by their cause and much more eager to compete to masterbate into the microphone for the sake of their own egos. i think that their choice of opening singer says it all. yep, it is this kid...this freaking kid.



did we learn nothing as a culture about the danger of trying to re-live the past after the riots at "woodstock 30"?

haiti needs help. how about we collectively approach the problem by asking what would be most effective now and not misappropriate a genuine effort made in a completely different time in a fundamentally different society.

twins...i don't care for 'em...not even a little.

so, twins freak me out. i mean, a lot. identical twins. if the parents of twins were considerate human beings in the least they would stop monopolizing the earth's resources and choose ONE kid. i am a reasonable man so i understand the reluctance to do so. that is why i suggest putting the other kid in a chamber where they can be kept for spare parts but in a place where the rest of us won't have to look at 'em. i mean, allowing two of the exact same looking human to walk around on the planet is just thinking too damn much of that one typology of person.

knowing that i feel this way, you will understand why this picture freaks me out so much. i do not want twins anywhere near my wife! if there are two of them there could easily become an army! and then we can be overrun with plaid and androgyny!



this picture was taken by a photographer friend of sabrina's while they were in twinsburg, ohio during the international twin festival. the fact that ohio supports twins and twin-like behavior is the foremost reason why i will never move back there. i plan to avoid nevada as well because of their festival in the town of nazi-pederast, nevada. but between the two, i am more likely to become a nevadan.

this picture was published in a magazine a few years back. it was either an art magazine or a magazine for people traumatized by the shining but can't get enough of the grotesque fear and shock created by the sight of nature's cruel double-dare.

i particularly blame double mint gum and the olson twins for glamourizing twindom and allowing twins to feel free to be seen together, teach in our schools and hold public office. they act like the debate is closed but the jury is still far from in and i, for one, believe that twin-ing is a choice! it is nurture not nature. there are viable alternatives (see more detailed information on the aforementioned spare-parts chamber in my manifesto: towards a twinless world). let's say no to the supernumerary and stand up for family values. after all, it was adam and eve - not adam, adam's identical twin brother shmadam and eve.

Prayer | from "Things Needful" in The Valley of Vision"

Fill the garden of my soul with the wind of love, that the scents of the Christian life may be wafted to others; then come and gather fruits to thy glory. So shall I fulfil the great end of my being - to glorify thee and be a blessing to men.

Message from 1.31.10 // Insomnia - Stress

settlers of divorce (me and sabrina's knock-down, drag-out version)

although we are of scottish blood and this t-shirt might cause some misunderstandings, settlers of catan enthusiasts would think you were cool...which might, in fact, prove that you are terribly uncool.

The District of Snowlumbia

While I recognize that I risk pushing this whole snowstorm thing past saturation point, I hereby present too many pictures from our foray out into a genuine Winter Wonderland of over two feet of snow.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

NYTimes: ‘Lost,’ Nearing End, Nods to the Beginning

From The New York Times:

'Lost,' Nearing End, Nods to the Beginning

By MIKE HALE

Tuesday night's season premiere of "Lost" seemed to be trying to strike a balance between the show's convoluted mythology and its more human, character-driven dimension.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/arts/television/04lost.html

Aren't ready for LOST tonight? Not sure what's happening? Catch up in 8ish minutes

Guitar Center's Drum-Off 2009 Champion- Ramon Sampson ( HT @long_ck )

Thanks @long_ck for sending this to me. Only took me a week or two to actually watch it.

Gaming Stats

Source: Online Education

First Listen: Midlake's 'The Courage Of Others' (via NPR)

This Too Shall Pass [Video] by OK Go

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

And a letter from one of the band members about YouTube not enabling embedding.

Lego CL!CK Stop Animation Video. Sweet Moustache.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OinrOnjzH_A&feature=youtube_gdata

Dallas Willard on Memorizing Scripture

“Bible memorization is absolutely fundamental to spiritual formation. If I had to choose between all the disciplines of the spiritual life, I would choose Bible memorization, because it is a fundamental way of filling our minds with what it needs. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth. That’s where you need it! How does it get in your mouth? Memorization”
(Dallas Willard, “Spiritual Formation in Christ for the Whole Life and Whole Person” in Vocatio, Vol. 12, no. 2, Spring, 2001, p. 7).

NYTimes: The Happiest People | Educate Instead of Arm?

From The New York Times:

The Happiest People

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

The people of Costa Rica are some of the most content on earth. Could it be because their priority is financing education not war?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/opinion/07kristof.html

Soli Deo Gloria,
Brian Ferry
Director of Student Ministry
513.289.3630
www.andersonhills.blogspot.com
www.theferryblog.blogspot.com
...sent from the Palm Pre

Vintage Ads

 

T...thought you, in particular, would enjoy this site: CLICK HERE

wilhelm!

so, after i told scott about the sons of lee marvin, it occured to me that you guys may also be in the dark about another amazing pop-culture phenomenon...the wilhelm scream! the wilhelm scream is a sample of a scream in an old western that has been inserted into literally hundreds of movies and tv shows as an industry inside joke. i believe that george lucas and steven spielberg started the joke by placing it all over star wars and indiana jones, but the wilhelm scream has been adopted by all sorts of filmmakers. here is a link to a youtube video that shows movie and tv clips where the wilhelm scream has been used, though it is only a fraction of the number of times it has actually been used. once you hear it, you'll start to recognize it more often than you'd think.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio

8 Tracks Mix

Running Barefoot? HT @outsideallday

Less stress on some joints running barefoot than with running shoes: CLICK HERE

Might be time to try some of these (Vibram FiveFingers):

MUST READ! 50 Things we know now that we didn't know this time last year: http://ow.ly/Tji1

It's astounding and marvelous to me that we are still discovering species and wonders of creation. Lest we humans get too full of ourselves we are constantly reminded that there are unending frontiers vast, minute, close & distant whose depths we can't ever plumb completely.

Some of my favorites:

2. Grumpy people think more clearly because negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking. 
   -> Charlie Brown's BRILLIANT!


9. Babies pick up their parents' accents from the womb, and infants are born crying in their native dialect. Researchers found that French newborns cry in a rising French accent, and German babies cry with a characteristic falling inflection. 
   -> So why is Quinn crying in Swahili?


15. The higher a patient's body-mass index, the less respect he or she gets from doctors. 
   -> Sorry fatties, the doctors hate you. Get on a treadmill.



19. The calmest place on Earth is on top of an icy plateau in Antarctica known as Ridge A, several hundred miles from the South Pole. It is so still that stars do not twinkle in the sky because there is no turbulence in the atmosphere to distort the light.
   -> sounds like the perfect place for a sabbatical or vacation.

20. The thrill of driving a sports car makes the body produce more testosterone. The findings suggest a biological explanation for why some men buy a sports car when struck by a "midlife crisis."
   -> VW convertible, here I come!



36. A new species of giant rat was discovered in a remote rainforest in Papua New Guinea. At 32.2 inches from nose to tail and 3.3 pounds, it's thought to be one of the largest rats ever found.
   -> I don't think this would have anything to do with their coffee but man, their coffee's delicious.


37. Differences in body odors produced by people who are more prone to insect bites show they have lower levels of fruity-smelling compounds in their sweat than those who are resistant to mosquitoes.
   -> sorry sweet meat, you're going to continue to be eaten. Since I smell like musty canvas I'm all set.


40. The speed of U.S Internet broadband lags far behind other industrial nations, including Japan, Finland, South Korea, France and Canada.
   -> I knew our intertubes were clogged!


44. A flesh-eating pitcher plant that grows more than 4 feet long can swallow and devour rats that are lured into its slipperlike mouth to drown or die of exhaustion before being slowly dissolved by digestive enzymes.
   -> sounds like they need some of these in Papua New Guinea. 


50. Watermelon is more efficient at rehydrating our bodies than drinking water. It contains 92 percent water and essential rehydration salts.
   -> still not a huge fan of watermelon but it's good to know. 



CLICK HERE to read the whole list. And definitely take a few minutes to do so.