Train incident

Not sure how many of you commute to work on a train, but I've seen a growing problem recently with people thinking it's okay to play their music out loud through their smartphone speakers. Granted, it's not very loud, but it's loud enough to be pretty annoying. Anyway, the train was delayed this morning rendering it more crowded than usual. Actually, it was packed. This dude was maybe three seats away from me listening to his music out loud through his phone. He was probably in his mid to late 20s. So this woman probably in her mid 50s says "Who is listening to their music out loud?! Listening to music out loud is not permitted on the train!" Of course the dude doesn't acknowledge her or turn off his music. The woman is sitting behind the guy who's playing his music out loud. I'm thinking, "woman, you are stupid. You have no idea what you just opened yourself up to." A few minutes later, the dude gets up and gets in this poor woman's face and is like "what the F*#% you gotta be kickin' my seat like that?! I don't need this bull&@#$ this early in the morning!" Poor woman was kinda duckin for cover as it looked like this dude was about to punch her, but she wasn't really backing down. Gotta give her some credit. Luckily there was a guy about my age and another dude sitting right near the woman and they both got up and protected her a little and told the dude to relax and kinda restrained him... It was great to see that there are still some stand up guys my age out there. I'm sure I would have done the same thing had I been closer.
But I was thinking afterward, that the one guy who jumped up to protect this woman had his ipod headphones on when he confronted the guy. First thing I thought was that Dave Chappelle skit "nobody wants to get their ass beat to a soundtrack" but then I wondered if he thought he sounded like an idiot. I know when I am the gym and someone asks me if I am done with some equipment and I have my headphones in and I try to respond it always sounds like nothing or incoherent jibberish is coming out. It sounds like when a deaf person tries to speak. I feel bad saying that but you know what I mean right?

Boo-ya!

look at that pride.

More Shameless Self Promotion

I did these drawings for work a month or so ago. I was pretty pumped that I was able to do these renderings in this particular style. It isn't often that we get those opportunities anymore. Makes me feel like an architect. Anyway the project is for Philabundance. If you don't know what Philabundance is, it's a local food bank that provides underprivileged families food at little or no cost. The task was to show how a building they already own could be turned into a supermarket. Basically these were done to raise some money so they could show investors and hopefully get the project built. I'll keep you updated. You should click on the images to make them bigger. They're worth taking a look at.

Gym Comfort

I post a lot about gyms. It might seem like I am a gym rat, but I am far from it. But, as a designer, I think a lot about how things work. What works, what doesn't, how things affect people, what makes people use things the way they do. It runs subconsciously through my mind in everything I do probably. Lately I've really been noticing how comfortable gym equipment is. Not how comfortable it is while actually using it for its intended purpose, I'm no orthopedist so I couldn't tell you if was really moving the right way for building muscle or anything. But I have noticed that the gym seats are really quite comfortable. They either have you leaning forward on a pad, reclining back at just the right angle, suspending your legs in a relaxed dangling position, or perfectly cramping your body between multiple pads. Between sets, I sit there thinking "I could so fall asleep right now."

Been Busy lately.

The heading is sort of a lie. I've been so bored lately that the only solace I have found for myself is in sketching. It's really pretty therapeutic. I've been setting aside time each day to hopefully draw something worth drawing. It goes back to me trying to reteach myself how to draw. It helps that I haven't had a drink in 3 days. Here are some that I have done lately... all within a few blocks from my office or from around my house.

Letto Deli on 13th (kinda messed this one up from the very beginning)

Juniper and Chestnut Streets


Woolworth Building in Collingswood


view toward PSFS building from midblock on 12th and Walnut (one of my favorite views in the city.

inside the irish pub...

Martin's cleaners

Collingswood Municipal Building

22 Lincoln Ave...from my porch looking toward everyone elses porch

9 Lincoln Ave... from my front porch

Wife Beaters

Not sure if I posted a picture of this years work softball uniforms which I was the mastermind behind but, I was thinking about having my work softball team wear tank tops as their uniform next year. (My dream is still to have our softball team wear those long beach shirts with a womans body in a bikini drawn on them) I think it would be hilarious though if we wore wifebeaters because none of us are in good enough shape to look good in them. It'd be pasty, undefined white dudes showing off their non-existent "guns" and hopefully their tubby stomachs. I'm picturing Dangle from Reno 911.

It just made me wonder when the tank top became known as a wife beater. It's like the hooded sweatshirt becoming a hoodie. It just kinda happened overnight it seems. It's a shame that a tank top turned into a degrading fashion name. And to think we probably all have a black and white picture somewhere of our grandfathers in their white tank top undershirts doing yard work. But I was thinking that women need to come up with a derogatory term for an article of womens clothing. Like the husband leaver or something. The affair skirt? I don't know what those would look like but I'd love to find out.

Dating

No, not dating anyone...surprise surprise. But I was talking to a friend recently who is dating someone pretty seriously. He was talking about the usual trials and tribulations of dating; who stays over who's house, how many nights a week is too many nights a week, who's got clothes over who's house, toothbrushes, dinners etc. And it came down to the girl he's dating being cranky that she can't sleep at his house. It's the bed, or the pillow, or that it's too hot, or they aren't used to sleeping on the left side, or they just can't get comfortable, whatever it is. It's funny because I think this happens both ways in every relationship. But it sucks because you just feel responsible for their misery all day. You think, my house sucks, my bed is no good, the pillow is too soft, I shouldn't have put my arm around her at 3am. It'll be four in the afternoon and you will still feel responsible about the bad sleep she got that night. It hangs over you and makes you miserable. Not to mention your own shoulder is still killing you from sleeping on it weird.

Something to be Proud of

I don't know if this is really something to be proud of or not, but it's something I am going to tell myself to be proud of. You know how when you're young you like to think that your parents don't know anything, and you vow to never tell your own kid that they don't know anything and that you'll give them some respect. Not saying my parents didn't give me respect, they did, but they still didn't hesitate to tell me I didn't know what I was talking about. It's that "you'll understand when you get older" thing, and I really do believe in it as I am getting older. And you like to think back to things you're parents never had eg; the internet, cell phones, color tvs, etc. And how it's kinda cool that they did without those things. Vestiges of the past. So the one thing I am going to be pretty proud of, is the fact that I have silver fillings. Yeah. I am probably the very tail end of my generation to still have gotten silver fillings. And there's almost a sense of pride or a connection or commonality I feel when I see a celebrity on tv laugh and I can see their silver fillings. Like, "wow, that's cool... you got a cavity in the 80s or early 90s too." Call me crazy.

Apps and the future

The weather has been pretty beautiful the last few days. It's been the first few nights in a long time that I haven't been sweating my ass off at my house. It got me thinking about the weather. I was thinking that if it were possible to predict the weather in the future, like years out.. Like not a five day forecast, but we're talking the 40 year forecast. I was wondering if it would be cool or be terrible. Kinda like being able to know how and where you are going to die I guess. Would it be a good thing to know or a bad thing. I guess I was thinking that part of what makes life worth living is not knowing what the future holds, and I think the weather has a bigger effect on our overall happiness than we think. I think 5 days is all the weather future we can really handle. More than that, we don't really want to know. But if we were able to say, "okay, August 20th, 2020 is going to be a gorgeous day, let's have a picnic" would we plan things way far out like that? I mean you damn well know though if the iphone had an app for predicting the weather that far in advance you'd have those iphone a-holes always checking the weather. "Oo ooo, yeah lets do it august 20th 2020 it's going to be sooo beautiful.. wait let me see what its like on the same date 2019...Ooo record temperature!" I'm glad we can't do that yet.

Interns

We've got two new summer interns at my office last week. It seems like they are both good people and will fit in pretty easily with the rest of the crew. But man, I couldn't help but think of how they must feel right now. It's that first day of work awkwardness. When you arrive at an office twenty minutes earlier than everyone else and people forget you are coming that day so you sit around awkwardly waiting for someone to show you what to do, where to sit, what forms to fill out. Then you fill out the forms, get toured around the office, and you try desperately to figure out which people are going to be worth befriending. Sit around awkwardly again just staring at the papers you just filled out... pretending to pour over them like you even understand half the 401k jargon. "Just looking over these documents here... Looks like I am going to have a loooong, and prosperous career here...this pie chart is showing significant gains in our long term mutual funds and Brightside has given it it's highest ranking. This is really going to be great." Meanwhile you have no clue what Brightside even is, or what that pie chart is telling you.
Then you sit there until the dreaded noon time rolls around and it starts to feel like your first day of classes at college when you don't know who to sit with at lunch. There's the group of kids that are probably too cool for you which have already gone to 3 more parties than you and probably hooked up with more girls than you are going to hook up with in your college career. And there's the one kid that was probably home schooled but sat in front of you in philosophy class which you kinda feel obligated to sit with since you already had a conversation with him before class. Hopefully they take you out to lunch so you don't sit there like an idiot not knowing what the protocol is for lunch. Poor kids. And then someone will inevitably come over around 3 o'clock and ask "everything going alright? All settled in? Going to come back tomorrow?" and the reply will inevitably be an enthusiastic "yeah, its going great so far!... Definitely be back tomorrow!...har de har har" And really they are thinking, "I have no clue what's going on..."
Unfortunately I think I have become the guy who is in his early thirties, who thinks he is cool, but really he just has all the dumb goofy action figures at his desk. F---.

Greenline Cafe Show

A few days ago I mentioned my Mayor Nutter sketch was going to be a part of the bro luv art show at Greenline Cafe in West Philly. Well, the dude sent me some pictures today of the show. Makes me feel pretty legit considering the other work looks pretty good. Mine is that dinky one next to the hippo that you can barely see. Click on the image to enlarge.

Meetings

I went to a meeting the other day for work. It was a pretty casual meeting, just me, the boss, and 3 other people working on the project with us. We're sitting around a table in this guy's office talking about the project, and another guy comes into the meeting. "pull up a chair Joe..." and he pulls out the chair, and turns it around and sits on it backwards...Joey Lawrence style. It was just weird to me. I haven't seen anyone do that in a long time and the fact that the guy was like 50 who did it made it even more weird. Actually what made it even more weird besides the fact that it was at a legitimate work meeting, the chair was actually facing the normal way and he spun it around.

Also, I am amazed that I actually found a picture of Joey Lawrence sitting that way.

Also, I am surprised that I even remembered who Joey Lawrence was let alone knew that he sat backwards on chairs.

Church

I haven't been to church in a while. I have a feeling I say that too much lately. It's a shame. Anyway, the other day I was at a happy hour at a pretty reputable bar (by reputable I mean, nicer than the dumps I usually frequent) and I was standing up leaning against this leather covered chair. It wasn't real leather, kinda like a vinyl, rubbery plether. I guess I was unconsciously picking at it while I was talking to some friends. Five minutes later I realized I was gouging out a pretty decent sized portion of the back of the seat. I knew it was wrong, but I kept doing it because it was fun. It reminded me of being in church; scraping the grime off the wooden pew in front of me. I don't know why that's fun but... and why is church the only place where you can really scrape like that?

Memorial day sketches

In keeping with my goal of sketching something everyday.. here are my vacation sketches. I was trying to do some indoor sketches. Haven't done those in a while.

beach

family room


porch

stairs and front door