Yep, I believe in this guy enough to send him money. I guess there’s a first time ever.

So it’s now April 2007.

Lots of stuff has been happening with me as usual. The big news is I’ve partnered with my friend Kevin Robledo at linemodern. We are planning some big things this year, so keep checking out this site and linemodern.com!

Also I’m trying my hardest to finish my Master’s degree this semester, but who knows if I will actually walk in May or in December. I’m just ready to be out and done and be able to make some money off everything I’ve been learning.

I’m going to try and run the Chicago Marathon this October, but right now I can’t afford to sign up or reserve a hotel room, so I’m just going to have to keep training and cross my fingers that everything won’t be full when I finally have the money to commit to it. If anyone wants to donate like 300 bucks so I can go, feel FREE to get in touch with me ASAP.

http://www.ncsu.edu/facilities/campus_map_dev/index.php

Why is it I made a better campus map, and it’s on the ncsu servers, and no one has ever taken it live?

I ponder these things sometimes.

[update] Looks like they finally took it offline, got to wonder what ever happened with it. I’ll see about mirroring the whole thing here for posterity

[update2] Here it is, my final version: http://www.snotmonkey.com/work/maps

It’s been a while folks, but here’s the skinny on my life these past bunch of weeks:

-I entered a competition, sent in my stuff on Oct. 3rd. Didn’t have nearly the clear head or time I needed to really flesh out the idea. Apparently it didn’t get into the finalists pool, but based on what DID make it in, I was almost completely outside the realm of what they were looking for. A month of work for zero pay-off. It’ll take me another week or two to redo it all well enough to put it in as portfolio pieces.

-Finally got around to mostly finishing the new IDSA student chapter site. Still a few bits and pieces to spice it up, but it works and if people will put up their WORK, it will finally e able to show off what our program can do. www.ncsuidsa.org

-Made a set of three coat hooks for my materials class. I’m fairly happy with how they turned out conceptually, but I need a LOT more practice with craft on the lathe. Luckily photoshop should be able to save them for the portfolio.

-Built a soap-box derby car with a group of sophmores. We made a throwback X-Wing fighter, and whomped the competition The base of the car came from a tricycle, and I did pretty much all the metalwork on it. Learned how to MIG weld pretty well, and the rest of the team did an amazing job in framing it out, and the finishing work!

-Been working on a funded project for a company with a couple of other graduate students. Unfortunately it’s all under NDA, but hopefully I will be able to talk about it before too long.

-Made a pretty sweet poster for my history of ID course, it’s a poster in ode to Raymond Loewy. If you don’t know who this guy is, look him up, as he is basically responsible for industrial design in the US.

-Wrote a captcha defeating utility. Complete waste of time, but I needed to prove a point. And now that it’s done (took about 24hrs), I think I may release it to the public so people can make their anti-spam measures better.

-Started the mass exodus of posessions on ebay. With any luck, in a couple of months I will have consolidated all the garbage out of my life again. Sold off 11 items this week, more will come quickly.

-Planning on running a 10k this next weekend if the weather and my health hold up.

-Been working on a chair/furniture line for a competition thing due Dec 3rd. I’m having an extremely hard time with it. Probably gone through 4 designs now all the way to start fabrication before realizing they won’t be strong enough to sit on. Very frustrating trying to make a stable and supporting object into something light, airy and new.

So much more, but it will have to wait for another day

Well, I’m still not sure what prompted me to do it, but this Labor Day weekend was spent up in Virginia Beach running the Rock’n'Roll Half Marathon.

It was awesome. I understand the runners high now. I started in Corral 11, my race number was 11151. I however finished in the top 7000 (woot) out of 21,700 entrants. Quite proud of myself for that I must say. Finish time was 2:12, which was a bit dissappointing. I wanted to be closer to the 2 hour mark, but round about mile 10 my body just crashed and I started slowing from 9:30 mile times to 10:30-11 minute times.

Anyhoo, my buddy Lucy that went with me should have some pictures of the scene, but here are a couple from the official site

It was also freaking incredible to see the elite runners go past the other way. We were lucky to see them because the course basically loops back on itself and it was a sight to see!

I’ve been frantically adding image data from the NOAA to Google Earth of the post hurrican destruction. Others have already mapped in overlays for downtown New Orleans. I will try to constantly update the links as people add more to them, and hopefully we will get more images of Nawlins soon. Simply amazing.

If you have google earth, save these files (right click->save as) to your computer, then just double click them and it will launch google earth and add them for you.

If you dont have google earth, GET IT. http://kh.google.com/download/earth/index.html

http://www.snotmonkey.com/content/googleearth Go here to get the files

Yep, that’s my route home. All 4545 miles of it.

Highlight points:

1) Las Vegas
2) Hoover Dam
3) Zion National Park
4) Bonneville Salt Flats
5) Mt. Rushmore
6) Chimney Rock (Oregon Trail what what)
7) Boulder Co.
8) World’s Biggest Ball of Twine
9) Field of Dreams
10) St. Louis
11) HOME

The first stretch was from Pismo Beach to Las Vegas, where I had a room in the Luxor. The hotel really is beautiful, and other than the Bellagio, it’s the best I’ve been to on the strip.

Decided to play some table games and settled on Blackjack. I watched this Irish guy play two hands. First hand he dropped 1000 bucks, max bet, and lost it. Next hand he dropped 800 bucks, split it, doubled down on both splits, won 6400 and walked away. I was like holy fucking christ!

Anyway, I ended up playing for about 2 1/2 hours. All told I ended up 80 bucks richer and got my room comp’ed (another 80 bucks saved) and my meals comp’ed (another 30). Plus I got the fees from my credit card cash out waived (20 bucks). So I came out over 200 dollars richer.

Today I went to the Hoover Dam and Zion National Park, ended up spending a good part of the day in Zion. The Hoover Dam was awesome, but its so damn commercialized now, I couldn’t stand being there long. You can’t even get a decent picture without paying to go on the “tour”. It’s serious bullshit. Zion on the other hand, was absolutely AMAZING. It’s like being on another planet. I didn’t think I would enjoy it all that much because I didn’t have the time or equipment to really hike, but man, even as a drive through it was fabulous.

Then, tonight after dinner, on the way to my stopover in Salt Lake City, I get PULLED BY THE FUCKING Utah Highway Patrol. I was going UNDER the speed limit. So im like WTF when he comes up. He pops me for having a stuck on brake light and no proof of insurance, and FULLY tickets me for both. That son of a bitch. I’ll get both things resolved in the morning, but god what a bitch of a patrol officer.

After spending the night in my car in the middle of the Redwood Forests in Northern California, I drove into San Francisco around 10am Wednesday morning.

Of course I was going in via US-101 South, going over the Golden Gate Bridge. As I approached the bridge, I noticed the large sign saying $5.00 TOLL AHEAD. I about crapped my pants. I had one dollar in cash on me, and was entering the bridge. No turning around! I spent my passage over the bridge literally digging in my seat cushions and coin tray trying to scrape together five dollars in cash. When I finally got to the toll booth, I had gotten up $4.65, and picked out nickels to get the last thirty five cents. The guy working the booth had a good chuckle about it. I wasn’t quite as happy, but I made it through alive and free, so all in all it wasn’t so bad.

The weather in San Fran was horrible. It was RAINING IN JUNE. Which apparently happens once every two years or so. I go to check into the hostel and they are booked full. Great I think. So I sit and browse hotels on my laptop and find an el cheapo only a block or so down the road. The Francisco Bay Inn would become my home for the night.

I decided to brave the city rain or shine. After a few hours of walking, I realized I was fighting a losing battle against the rain. I lost badly. I was just preparing to make it an early night when I heard from my best friend, whom I haven’t seen in the better part of a year. Turns out she is living in San Francisco these days, so we met up for some late night tea and sushi. It was really great to catch up and see that everything is going okay for her. It also really mentally rejuvenated me to be around a familiar face again.

Another update from the road ladies and gentlemen.

I drove through Montana, which is an absolutely beautiful state. The entire drive I was just amazed at the scenery, the mountains, hills and houses. Glacier National Park was phenomenal, I want to get back there on another trip when it’s not pouring down rain and I can actually spend some good time hiking and camping.

I put up some photos from the park and the drive in my trip gallery http://www.snotmonkey.com/gallery/crosscountry2005

Seattle has been a great time as well. It’s really a pretty small urban area, which is nice. Seattle reminds me a lot of San Francisco, but seemingly a bit more relaxed and down to earth. I hope I can get back here for a longer stay in the future. Now I am heading out along the infamous US101 around Washington and eventually down to Portland.

I am planning to mark out my trip on google maps at some point, probably after I get to Cali, so I can remember how I actually went, and I can mark out for everyone where the photos came from and the events happened. If it works like I hope, it should be a really good way to visually blog

I will put up the few photos I got here in Seattle in a few days, I just spent most of my time here doing normal people stuff, rather than the tourist stop and hop.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Once again I have been very impressed with a great Northern City.

I walked around Minneapolis for a good while yesterday, I happen to be staying right next door to the Minneapolis College of Art & Design. This area reminds me a LOT of San Francisco. There is a huge counter-culture population in this part of the city and it is astounding how pristine the roads, alleys and shops are.

It got to the point that I was actively trying to find a bum to beg me for money, to find a back alley with strewn about trash and rats. Then I had the stroke of inspiration! Find train tracks. There is always filth and vagrants surrounding train tracks. So I walk to the Soo Line tracks. What do I find? Privately kept, terraced gardens. And bike paths. NO trash, NO bums. I almost shed a tear.

I was speaking to a wily Australian last night who said that while living here off and on over the past 6-7 years, the city has been changing quite a bit. Even this hostel has really changed (and he said not for the better). He said especially downtown has been cleaned up, it’s like a clean sterile bathroom. Great for lower crime and vagrants, but all the great shops, restaurants, bars and most importantly, people aren’t there anymore. He said that the city is slowly tearing out their old buildings to replace them with new condos and apartments, new McDonald’s and Taco Bells.

I was amazed though, in walking for hours yesterday, I saw one McDonalds, that could have easily been mistaken for a corner cafe, and a Quiznos Subs. I didn’t see another chain restaurant or even a chain store in that time. Lots of REALLY cool looking places to just go check out. Co-op Markets instead of super markets, holistic medicine and supplement shops, bike shops, small theatres (no not movie theatres either, amazing I know), studios, lots of Yoga/Tai Chi clinics. All of this was within a 3-4 mile radius.

Maybe I just got lucky and found a kickass area of town, but even so, I would definitely not mind settling in here during the summer and early fall months.

Now I head on to the Lake Wobegon Trails, Fargo, and hopefully the Glacier National Park.