adrian is rad

I got the new iPad a couple weeks ago and I decided to make my own case for it, based someone on this idea. I made it out of an old wool sports coat that I felted myself, then cut up and sewed into this pattern. The leather comes from a thrift store women’s belt. The total cost of materials was about $13.

So the case would be ready when the ipad arrived, I modeled and 3D printed a fake ipad to use in designing the case.

Here’s the felted sports coat.

This past week and a half has been pretty busy, including seeing three movies, three bands and two baseball games. I won’t talk much about the games—you can find out what happened in the two games (Sunday’s 17 inning Red Sox loss and last Monday’s win vs Oakland)—but here’s what happened with the movies and bands.

Films:

• Sleepwalk with Me was the opening night film for the Independent Film Festival Boston, where I saw all of these films. It’s Mike Birbiglia’s semi-fictionalized take on his life, sleepwalking, relationships and becoming a comedian. I liked his comedy for a while. And, really, what I mean by his comedy is his story telling style. I wasn’t disappointed. This is equal parts funny and thoughtful and I’d recommend it. My one fear with the film is that producer and cowriter Ira Glass will get a lot of the credit where most of the meat of the story come straight from Birbiglia’s comedy.
• Knuckleball!: This is a documentary about the baseball pitch. Since about 1992, when I became fascinated with Tim Wakefield, I’ve liked the knuckleball and knuckleball pitchers. This game an interesting look at the history, some of the pitchers and the mechanics of the actual pitch. Most of the film, though, looked at the two pitchers who were still throwing it in 2011: RA Dickey and Tim Wakefield. (Wakefield has since retired.) I enjoyed it a lot, but I think it may only be for those who are interested in baseball.
• Under African Skies is a documentary about Paul Simon’s Graceland with a large part of the film focusing on Simon’s first trip back to South Africa since the album was released. (He played in Zimbabwe in 1987, but not in South Africa itself.) He reunited with a lot of the original musicians and through and around them playing the album’s music together again, some of the story about how the album was made and the aftermath were told. I really thing Graceland is one of the best pop albums ever, so I wasn’t a hard sell on this movie, but I thought it was a really well-made film.

Concerts:

• Archers of Loaf @ the Middle East: I’ve liked this band since I was 18; unfortunately they broke up when I was 17. Luckily they reunited last year and added a Boston stop to their tour dates this year. The show itself was great. It wasn’t just that they played all the old songs I loved, but that there were all these fans seeing the band they couldn’t see for all those years. It made for a fun atmosphere.
• Horse Feathers @ Brighton Music Hall: I’d seen Horse Feathers before, in a small show in San Francisco almost four years ago. This time it was a Saturday night crowd in Boston and a sold out show. The band played well and from that aspect it was a great show. The crowd was very chatty, though, which distracted from the overall experience. I’ll never get why one would pay 15 dollars to see a band and then talk he whole time.
• Feist @ House of Blues Boston: After all of the above Margaret and I were not exactly excited for another night out. Add to that that I’m always sceptical of large venues like House of Blues. Feist came out and started the hard, scattershot rhythm of “The Bad in Each Other” and we were won over. And, though it’s very big, House of Blues has good sound and decent sightlines.

Coke product sizing seen in US America in the last year.

• 8 oz*
• 12 oz**
• 12.5 oz
• 14 oz
• 16 oz
• 16.9 oz (500ml)
• 20 oz
• 33.8 oz (1 liter)
• 42.3 oz (1.25 liter)
• 67.6 oz (2 liter)

It really seems like they’re trying to find the right size.

*fluid ounces, of course

**in a can.

I 3D printed Margaret an anotomical heart for Valentine’s day. It came out pretty well.

I actually printed three. I gave her the one on the far right.

I went to Adrian, Michigan recently, fulfilling a ~15 year old goal. Here are some photos!

Before Christmas I made and 3D printed three custom cookie cutters: one of Santa, one of my face and one of Pennsylvania. The outlines were the cutting part and then the inside was meant to emboss the shapes into the dough. They worked pretty well except the dough itself spread out too much when it was baked so it lost some of the resolution. More flour and less butter next time.

To me the crux of the Nelson Mandela story is his time in prison. He went in angry, at his own admission, and deemed a terrorist. He was ill-treated by guards. Long hours of hard labor in a lime quarry damaged his eyesight permanently. But after twenty-some years, he wasn’t broken; instead when he was offered to be freed, he refused unless the other political prisoners were freed as well. And after 27 years, he came out a hero, a founding father and a redeemer. He came out a better man, learning the language of his oppressors to better communicate with them, working to save one of their national symbols, willing to forgive those—both specifically and generally—that oppressed him, even helping give a scholarship to one of his prison guard’s sons. Granted, he was just one man—there were many that worked to change South Africa—and he wasn’t perfect, but what an amazing man, he is.

466/64 was his prison number.

It’s only been a little while since my last mixtape, but really September and October can be seen as part one and part two of the same mix. This one starts out with some soul and then movies into indie rock and folk. It’s a good one…

Go ahead and check out the playlist (below) or the liner notes.

Adrian’s October 2011 Mixtape (zip file, mediafire link)

—

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply add all the songs to your library and then go to File->Library->Import Playlist and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the playlist 2011October in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

—

October 2011 mixtape:

1. Raphael Saadiq Heart Attack
2. James Brown Think
3. Charles Bradley The World (Is Going Up In Flames)
4. Adele Someone Like You
5. Otis Redding Security
6. The Womack Brothers Yield Not To Temptation
7. Pickwick The Round
8. Two Sheds Let her dance
9. The Tree Ring Wore It Deep
10. Low Low Low La La La Love Love Love My Ears Are For Listening
11. BOAT Lately
12. The Head and the Heart Winter Song
13. An Heart Dressed Sharply
14. Aimee Mann The Scientist
15. Eef Barzelay In The Aeroplane Over the Sea
16. Leslie Sisson Blues
17. Beirut East Harlem
18. Crooked Fingers Typhoon
19. Low Try To Sleep
20. Delorean Country Clutter

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them. And tell other people about the artists!

I haven’t done a monthly mixtape in a long time even though I’ve been wanting to get back to them. Here’s my first and if you stay tuned for a couple of days, I’ve got part two of the mix, October 2011, coming up. I hope you enjoy it–there’s a nice mix of music here.

Go ahead and check out the playlist (below) or the liner notes for it.

Adrian’s September 2011 Mixtape (zip file, mediafire link)

—

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply add all the songs to your library and then go to File->Library->Import Playlist and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the playlist 2011september in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

—

September 2011 mixtape:

1. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists Parallel or Together
2. Frightened Rabbit Fuck this Place (ft Tracyanne Campbell)
3. Matt & Kim Block After Block
4. The Morning Benders Last Night
5. Tune-Yards My Country
6. WHY? These Few Presidents
7. David Bazan Eating Paper
8. Fanfarlo The Walls Are Coming Down
9. Bon Iver Holocene
10. Typhoon Summer Home
11. John Statz Tired of Telephones
12. the Wooden Birds Two Matchsticks
13. Fionn Regan For a Nightengale
14. Josh Ritter Good Man
15. Strand of Oaks Ohio
16. the National Think You Can Wait
17. Vandaveer Dig Down Deep
18. A Weather Giant Stairs
19. Explosions in the Sky Look Into the Air

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

(by Natalie Kardos)

I went to a wedding over Labor Day weekend with Natalie. I call these my astronaut sunglasses. They’re made by American Optical—Randolph Engineering makes the same model—and were apparently the choice of astronauts (and military pilots and Don Draper).

I wore it (purchased September 2006) until it was fell apart. If you ever see one, buy it and I’ll pay you back.

–

Update: I found out that the style is called a Hooley Hat. It’s by New Era. I can’t find the Oakland Athletics version of it, though. Maybe it’s only available at the stadium (where I bought the original hat).

In the general progression to slowly becoming an adult I’m ironing shirts more often. The above video, from shirt maker TM Lewin, helped me become both better and quicker at ironing. I’ve been using this method for a few months and it’s definitely better than my non-method before.

TW Lewin also has videos on how to press (iron) trousers and how to fold shirts.