Busted!!!

Translation:

It occurred to me today to look at your facebook page, and 

I found that you have written a comment containing the word that begins with "f". Sacha, don't pick up the habit of speaking with that type of vocabulary. You are a very intelligent woman. I love you very much, your Abuela.

I. Love. My. Abuela. Holy crap, she is the coolest woman ever. The other night I was feeling under the weather, so what does she do? Visit me with homemade soup and groceries and joins me for an episode of Anthony Bourdain. 

I like knowing that she's got her eye on me. It might seem creepy to some to have their facebook page under surveillance by their grandmother. But I guess I just love knowing that she cares enough to the point that she's willing to take on facebook as a means to keep in touch with me. She, like the rest of my family, knows every side of me and is still able [at the end of the day] to say that she loves me and is proud of the person I've become. I don't for a second take that for granted.

flop.

back to the drawing board...

EDIT: 

More like back to the concept board...

New Band Name?

My buddy Stephen.Let's see...there's Crystal Stilts, Crystal Castles, Crystal Antlers... Crystal Eyes, anyone?

I mean, if we wanted to get really crazy, I could go with Glass-fill-in-the-blank. What is it with these bands anyway? I've never actually listened to any of them, but if I were to start a band suddenly I'd probably stick glass or crystal in the name. Get some misdirected google searches my way.

Technically Yesterday

I made good use of my day today. Woke up late, but took a nice walk down to the market area to pick up my pants from the tailor. On my walk back up the hill I stopped at Twice Sold Tales and got some books that looked interesting.
The one that I'm especially excited about is Klondike Lost. Cool images, sure, but also just cool in general.

Upon arriving home, I got a second burst of energy and decided to setup a desk in my room. I made it using one of the doors from my closet and two of my strobe light cases to hold it up. Pretty cool, huh? Once the desk was up I put it to good use by finishing up the new LICK! poster.
It's still pending revisions, but I figured I'd put it up anyway. It's weird looking back at what I started off with. I mean, I was originally using a photograph of Richie Rich (of Heatherette fame). Lord knows how I ended up with this.

Yes.

Mix10k

It's done. Thank god. After a little over 14 hours working on a t-shirt design for these folks we came to an agreement on the following outcome.

Front:

Back:

I personally would've liked to have it on dark gray...But than again I don't like to stray too far from blacks and whites. Fair 'nuff.

Under Construction

There's a lot going on as of late, but I don't feel it in terms of increased stress. It's kind of nice, actually.

I'm excited about some opportunities that have come up. I'm going to do a couple of t-shirt designs for Butch Queendom (my friends t-shirt line) as well as for my friends over at Emerald City Guitars. I'm especially excited about designing for them as that was one of my first jobs as a teenager--helping around the shop, selling gueetars, and hanging out with the big kids on my weekends and summer breaks. The smell of Nag Champa will forever take me back to those days.

I'm also going to start interning for the guys behind CMRTYZ. This is probably what I'm most excited about. It'll be nice to surround myself with folks who think and create differently than I do. But I think what excites me the most is that I'll get to screen print again.

There's also the matter of the switch I'm making to a new server. Ugh.

Geeking Out-Session 1

I am obsessed with the work that has been coming out of the Metro Design Studio. Particularly the re-branding they've done for the Los Angeles metro system. Holy cow. It is just so cool. There's a good blog post about it here that shows before/after shots of how the project has given them a total face lift.

So far, my favorite product has been their naughty/nice shirts. They also have similar messaging that they do on balloons, but I can't for the life of me find a photo of it online. I'm also loving their website. Really clean, fun design and SUPER user-friendly (unlike a certain other metro website...King County, I'm talking about you).

Is this a heart or panic attack?

Why, yes, my stress level is through the roof.

Butch Queendom Shoot

4 beers later and I'm on the roof taking photos in freezing weather. It should be noted, that the new manager of our building put locks on the doors that lead to the roof. Thanks to liquid courage, I rammed the side of my body several times into said door and broke the lock. Here's what followed:

Anthony has a website, Butch Queendom. This is the latest shirt design. More photos...

Building

This past week(ish) I was in Tijuana, Mexico building a church. Yes, a church.

Though at first I was hesitant about the actual goal of the trip, and whether or not the call of poverty is best answered with a church, I saw it as an opportunity to bond with my family (all of whom went) and to hang out with some old friends. Besides, who am I to say what someone needs. They want a church, give 'em a church.

Just after finishing. I'm second from the left.

The trip was extremely successful and we got the building up in 3 days. That's roughly 24 hours of labor (one day was cut short due to weather). I was also surprised to find myself get close to people I had never met before from the community I grew up in.

Tatuaje

Woohoo! Tattoo!

Design and Tattoo by Lisa Orth

Hoity Toity

Just finished editing a batch of photos that I took at this fancy event last Friday.

I thought I'd post some of my favorites from that Friday. This first one is just damn right cute:

And this next one I like because of a detail, which is posted below the photograph:I don't know why it is I like the detail of the other three men in the mirror. It'd be great if they were in focus, but I think it's the way a secondary source of light is hitting their faces. I don't know...

Don't Worry Friend, It'll All be Ok.

Given to me by Sam a while ago when I was feeling down on my luck.

It never fails to make me smile.
Meow.

Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me

Wednesday night I'll be getting a new tattoo, which I've been meaning to get for over 2 months. It's a Morrissey tattoo. Sam is leaving soon. In a week. This really sucks.That's us up there. Anyway, he's moving to Boston. It seems that it's become a trend for those close to me to either leave abruptly or in a more gradual manner. Whatever.

Tomorrow morning I will be meeting up with a potential pet at Magnuson Park. I'm looking to adopt a dog, and there's one that seems to be a good fit. If it works out I will post it to this blog. I don't want to jinx myself.

No hope, No harm...

Famous!

(sorta)

Post-Election Night

Just got back from the Dirty Projectors show. Amazing.

But I still don't know who our next mayor is. Election night was a party-hopping event. Had drinks at Moe Bar, ate cheese and crackers at the Approve Ref. 71 party at Pravda, inhaled a slice of tiramisu at the Housing Levy party at Sole Repair, started up drinking [again] at the McGinn party at the War Room, and finally stumbled home to catch up on blog-election reports.

This is what the morning after looked like:

May You Grow Up to be Uglier

I've got to stop being a sucker for cute little kids. They're misleading. 

A woman and her 1 year old were just in the shop and the kid proceeded to put 3 different items that we have on sale IN HIS MOUTH. Maybe my issue should not be so much with the kid, as with the mother, who kept handing him different objects, which he would immediately stuff into his teething little mouth.

How do those kids produce so much saliva anyway?

They're gone now and the place wreaks of masticated cheerios. If I had balls (or even guts) I would've said something. But since I didn't, I'll just keep looking the other way--especially once someone decides to purchase a saliva-drenched beer coozie.

Change I Can Get Behind

Fall definitely brings change. I have my last two days at Seattle Counseling Service this week. I'm sad about leaving that place--and the people I get to work with. I've never clicked so well with coworkers before. BUT I've been offered the opportunity to do design and production FULL TIME at B-Bam! I actually just came back from a training in Costa Mesa on this new direct to garment printer called the Anajet Sprint.The printer is pretty amazing in the sense of what it can do and how it will cut down on our design time. However, the machine is a bitch when it comes to maintenance. It's super sensitive and needs to be in a climate-controlled space. This is mostly because of how far behind manufacturers are in producing a light-weight white ink. Though the class was 8 hours long, there's still a lot of information I wish I could've picked up. The trainers told us of future plans to offer an advanced training course. I would definitely be interested in that.

I've started designing a website for my graphic design work. My plan is to throw up a splash page on the main url and have it redirect the visitor either to my photography or design work. What I now need to do is photograph the printed materials I have produced up to this date to include in the portfolio.

But that'll have to wait for a bit since I will be leaving for NEW YORK in two days!!! I'm going for 6 days to visit Nick and take in a bit more of the Manhattan culture.

Woohoo!

Finally got the Rose's website up.
Still working out some of the kinks..But, all in all it's there. What more could I ask for?