Saturday Market Photo

From a plant vendor at last Saturday's PSU Market in the South Park Blocks.

Family Photos

My Grandma recently sent me a bunch of old photos of myself. Chuck scanned them and adjusted the faded colors somewhat and I just thought I'd share a few:

 

That's me on the tire swing. I like my hot pink corduroys. Can you buy those now, haven't they come back in style? I will totally buy a pair if I see them. And then that's me and my grandpa ("papaw") on a beach.

 

Me in a hat (strikes me as a little clockwork orange looking, but I didn't see that until I was much older.) And my Mom in some neat purple and white big sunglasses.

2011 Calendars - Portland & Chicago

       

I'm really excited about my latest project, just listed in my Etsy shop today. I went through all the photos I've taken during the last few months living here in Portland and the last few years for Chicago and picked out some of my favorites from each. They are both great cities for architecture and public art, and that's where my interests lie when I explore new places. I'm pleased with the mix of old and new buildings in these calendars, both are of interest to me, and I hope they interest others as well! The date and name of the building (or, alternatively, artwork or public spaces) pictured is indicated just below each image.

Interestingly, both of these cities use the slogan: "The city that works!" I'd heard of Chicago using it before we moved there, but I've seen it here in Portland on Parks Department Vehicles. I have the feeling, which I've discussed with my parents who still live there, that Chicago means it a little more in the hardworking, getting things done sense, while for Portland it seems like a slogan that goes along with their "we planned, it works" sensibility. You can't deny Chicago does have incredible transit and great architecture! They are two cities with more than just a slogan in common.

       

Anyway, There are currently 4 listings up in my etsy shop: 2 each for Chicago and Portland. You can buy a printed version, on heavy card stock, which will be shipped to you (order by Dec. 17th for delivery by Christmas Day!) Or, perhaps for last minute shoppers, a PDF version of each is available. Those will get e-mailed to you for print out on your home printer, and assembly just involves slicing six 8.5"x11" sheets in half! 

I've created a new section in my shop for these calendars for easier browsing: 2011 Calendars

Too much to post...

I haven't been keeping up very well with blogging lately, and trying to reflect on everything going on lately, seems like too much to fit in one post! But I will try...

My family was in town this weekend, including my Aunt Cheryl, cousin Jill and her boyfriend Danny. Our adventures included waiting in an endless line to see the skydeck of the newly renamed Willis tower (formerly famously known as the Sears Tower) with brand new glass projecting lookouts called "the ledge." I survived. Actually after the first few nervous steps it was pretty cool.

Since it was their first time in town we went to many of the standard sites, the Bean, the Calder at Federal Plaza, the glass domes at the Cultural Arts Center, the Tiffany Ceiling at Marshall Fields. (One of my bean pics made it onto Chicagoist!) We ended that day with a trip to the Art Institute's Modern Wing, since they are having free evenings on Fridays from 5-9pm.

I came home to find a letter from Washington Dept. of Licensing. Could only be one thing, the results to the last architectural licensing test I took. I had convinced myself I had failed this one, since I was preoccupied with some other issues at the time I took it. But fortunately I was wrong! It's a relief, and it's exciting that I'm that much closer to licensed, even if it is only #3 out of the 7 total I need to take (which means only 4 more to go!) A pass always gets me pumped for the next exam...though that feeling passes rather quickly.

Anyway, Saturday my parents took everyone to the Botanic Garden, while Chuck and I stayed home. We sorta spent the day preparing to have them all over in the evening, among other things. There had been some discussion of cupcakes, so I decided to pull out Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The Tiramisu recipe called to me. They were fairly easy to make, actually, and they turned out great. I think the cookies and cream recipe might still be our favorite, but I believe these have the potential to be made again. Cream cheese icing...Kahlua...coffee...I digress.

There was a Summerfest in Chinatown this weekend, so that was how we ended their trip. It was very crowded, there was a lot going on...somehow we pretty much managed to stay together. Pictures of it all are on my flickr, Chuck's flickr, etc.

Lastly I somehow managed to find time to fit in knitting an entire sweater/jacket this week. It's not quite done, but I have cast off, just leaving some finishing work. Progress pictures are mixed in with the others on my flickr photostream, with finished object photos coming soon!

Time Lapse

I'm glad Chuck has been doing something cool I can post to my blog. I certainly haven't been. I've been studying for exams, going to work and suffering from severe crafting withdrawal. Meanwhile Chuck made a couple of cool time lapse videos from our apartment.

What's the hold up?

Um, I guess the hold up is that I've been uploading my photos to flickr all week, and not so much blogging. We spontaneously traveled up to Grand Portage, Minnesota last weekend (which is not close, about 11 hours) because the site for Chuck's studio project is a border crossing station up there. It was cold! But it was also really pretty and interesting. I believe that was the first time I've been to Minnesota (excluding the airport.) I was impressed that even a seemingly small town like Grand Marais (near Grand Portage, not as close to the border) had a really nice "Whole Foods" Co-op (Not related in anyway to the grocery store chain) with pleanty of vegan selection. But...it was cold. There was a lot of jumping in and out of the car cause while it was pretty....it was too cold. Yet we did manage a mile long snowshoeing trip to see a frozen waterfall. I'm still working on up loading pics of that, but they should be up early this weekend at the latest! You'll be able to look for them in my Minnesota Border Crossing set.

Flickr Favorites

Reflect new Flickr pools I've been into lately (involving cats and knitting, go figure), plus some activities like protecting our couch from the cat (we have not yet covered it in foil,) watching the spire go up on the Trump tower and snow from various regions.


1. Beamish, 2. Cropped Cardi, 3. 13 January 2009, 4. Jan 14, 5. RoboCouch, 6. Gathered Cardi, 7. Linden, 8. Cabled, 9. Creationists' Closet 2, 10. Field Museum, 11. ., 12. ., 13. Hunting on the snow, 14. Not available, 15. Trump Tower Spire 3, 16. Holiday Decor, 17. Weapons of mass destruction, 18. abu, 19. poinsettia belt, 20. Cat Hoodie - Making Me Purrrrrr...., 21. Snowy hose 12/21, 22. queen anne ave sledders, 23. 5:15, 24. Andrew Bird at Hideout, December 15, 2008, 25. Pomegranate III

My Monday in Photos

Laundry & Ice:

Another good topic for weekends

1. Perched, 2. 4/365, 3. Acorn found a shell to grow into., 4. FInished Cable Cushion, 5. IMG_6963, 6. changecakes, 7. Polar Bear Diorama in the Stoll Wing, 8. Hats and scarves, 9. Untitled, 10. Mr. Bones, 11. Untitled, 12. 30 october., 13. 2 may., 14. Outside Cats, 15. Fruit, 16. Untitled, 17. kittycat, 18. IMG_6917, 19. Pantry after!, 20. Stash corner, 21. HEBRU (part of his mural), 22. Symmetroflections #4, 23. Mère & Pére : handmade paper, 24. strawaffles, 25. Turning

Remembering Italy

A work in progress since I signed up for flickr about a year ago is uploading the massive amounts of pictures I took when I went to Italy in 2002. This was a full quarter in undergrad, with lots of traveling...that adds up to a lot of photos. I think one thing that orginally got me very excited about flickr was the idea that I could place these photos on a map (the geotagging I was talking about in my last post) and have a better record of where I went. I spent a good chunk of a weekend or so when I first signed up working on this. After making 10 sets or so I stopped for reasons I don't recall.

Anyway, somehow I put it out of my mind for a while. Then a few things yesterday got me thinking about it again. One I suppose was the post yesterday, another was finding an image of a church I had been to but forgotten the name of on Facebook. Turned out that people that went on the Rome trip in my Graduate program had also stopped there. It's pictured in the middle above. Anyway, happy to have identified it, I promptly uploaded, labeled and did everything else to it I intend to try to do for the rest of the photos.

And then I realized that I hadn't even gotten to uploading pictures of Rome and the rest of the trip. Those first 10 sets really only covered the first 4 weeks of the quarter. (We spend the first two weeks in Ascoli Piceno, then traveled to many cities in Northern Italy. We settled in Rome for the rest of the quarter minus the last two weeks in which we traveled through cities in the South.) Part of the reason for that is that the bulk of the digital photos I have are from the beginning, before I filled up my tiny 2002 memory cards. Once we settled in Rome I was alternating between digital and film, until I eventually ran out of space completely.

Anyway, the goal is to eventually scan and upload everything. For now I'm slowing trying to finish off the rest of the digital pictures. The collection in progress is here, and I'll be sure to post about it when it's finally complete. (at which point I think it means it's time for another visit, right?) It's a lot of work googling and trying to recall names and places, I wish I had done it much sooner. But it's also a lot of fun.

Flickr Maps & Recent Walks

Just a quick post on this, since it's early & I am still groggy and consuming coffee. (Yeah, I was up late last night for no really good reason.) We're kind of right in the middle of a lot of interesting stuff architecturally, so we've been taking walks that involve lots of photos. And I try to be good about uploading and tagging these photos. And geotagging them as well, as evidenced in the picture above. You can see more of my map here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/emmakat/map/

In my opinion, the interface is clunky (only a handful of photos show up at one time) but I still enjoy playing with flickr's map feature. From the link above, in the bottom right there's a blackened tab that says "Search the map" which gives you a few options on how to search. Within my maps, I recommend looking up photos "taken in" Chicago, Italy, Washington, Utah or Colorado. Italy in particular was fun, though difficult because I did it last year from what I could recall about an undergraduate quarter long trip in 2002. This tagging was one of the first activities that got me hooked on Flickr.

I wish I could provide specific links to each of those, but unfortunately it's not set up like that. I hope eventually it will be less clunky, but for now I'm happy to know pretty specifically where I've been. (oh, also zoom in, I try to get as specific as I can) Alternatively, on most of my outdoor photos on the right you'll see the neighborhood listed under additional information, with a link to a map that will show you where that picture was taken. Anyway, thought I would try to share this, since I'm not to sure it's a feature most people are aware of or use. I certainly enjoy it, even if it's mainly for my own reference!

Lazy Blogging: Current Flickr Favorites

1. chocolate stars, 2. Kaffe Fassett Bird, 3. "This way" said bird, 4. Cute Love Owl Sculpture, 5. Roosevelt, 6. October, 7. Swing Gitan, 8. Pierogies and Cabbage, 9. Stir-Fry w/ Sweet Balsamic Vinegar Sauce, 10. Choc. Cupcakes w/ Banana-Coconut Frosting, 11. Broken, 12. cloudy bedroom wall, 13. Ransom Note 10.04.08, 14. peanut butter bomb cake1, 15. vegan cheesecake, 16. Lucy of Chicago, 17. Overhead Projector is not a Planetarium Projector, 18. Sortie, 19. Skull, 20. Beetle in Amber, 21. Cupcakes you can believe in., 22. this morning would best be spent eating cinnamon n sugar doughnuts and drinking apple cider...10.04.08, 23. colours of the fall, 24. ALBERT, 25. Spooky Matilda

Current Flickr Favorites

1. Prison Barbershop, patroned by prisoners, run by prisoners, 2. Oriental Hall ceiling, divided into 7,000 panels., 3. Père Lachaise 04, 4. Circles and Circles and Circles Again, 5. bottoms up : finished, 6. Renegade Chicago 2008, 7. Renegade Chicago 2008, 8. Rarrrr! Front door gaurdian, 9. Yep... the legs, 10. gocco flash 1, 11. Andrew Bird, 12. Andrew Bird, 13. Robbie, 14. Sugar Foots #2 Calvin, 15. Illumination Night, 16. Drawing-A-Day: July 25th, 17. 4 H winning 3 legged carrot, 18. nyc-travails-5025, 19. Lucky + Sevens, 20. Lightning, 21. Outdoor Bathrooms at the bottom of my street, 22. IMG_0993, 23. IMG_0671, 24. RCRG Season 2 Bout 7 — Prebout 9, 25. View from window in Queen Anne, Seattle

Look! the sky is doing things!

Lightning
Originally uploaded by 2:19

The sky was up to some pretty cool things last night here in Chicago. Chuck captured this image with droplets of rain on our window. Again we're unaccustomed to this kind of thing. The cat seems to have figured out that the flashes of light and the noise are related and ran to hide as soon as she spotted a few flashes...and I think I jumped a few times. And Chuck ran for the camera of course.

New Camera!

Market Vendor
Originally uploaded by emmakat79

This week I finally got a new camera! It's the first brand new camera I've had since all my previous cameras have been hand-me-downs, either from my boyfriend or my dad. All perfectly good cameras, always handy to have a few technically inclined guys around. When they upgraded to new fancier cameras I figured their old ones would work fine for me. Anyway, not the case this time! I had Chuck help me pick out a brand new one. It came last tuesday. I'm finally getting around to posting some of my favorite photos from the picture taking excursion I took on my lunch break Wednesday on my flickr account. And today we're off to check out Olympia, WA since we've never been and there's some happenings there this weekend. Look for photos taken with my new camera! Did I mention it's blue?

In Bloom

In Bloom
Originally uploaded by emmakat79

Around this time of year my mom asks me what is in bloom here in Seattle. Probably because most Ohio flowers aren't in bloom yet. This year I can give Mom photographic updates. Queen Anne looks very pretty this week!

Kerry Park Panorama

Kerry Park Panorama 2.25.08
Originally uploaded by emmakat79

I'm lucky enough to walk by one of the coolest view points in Seattle at least twice a week on my way to work these days. I thought I'd use it as an opportunity to document one location the same way on a weekly basis.

Actually, It brings to mind the movie Smoke. I don't remember exactly what that movie was about (maybe it wasn't about anything?) The main thing I remember is that Harvey Keitel's character stepped outside his shop every day to photograph the same corner the same way each time. I've wanted to do something like this since I saw that movie in 1995.

Anyway you can find my weekly documentation on my flickr site here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/emmakat/sets/72157603915242476/

Oops, I'm a little behind

2.20.08 Lunar Eclipse
Originally uploaded by emmakat79

So I sort of lapsed on staying on schedule. I was thinking about doing a make-up post, sort of posting an update on each topic on the schedule in one giant post. I even started it and everything, but then got distracted and didn't finish it. I've had thoughts on all of the topics over the last week, I wanted to post stuff. I just never got around to it.

So I'm behind. And not quite feeling like starting back up with a feature today! But I'd like to get back on track with my blogging schedule. So I may try the summary post soon and start from there!

Meanwhile, last night was a lunar eclipse! It's a difficult thing to photograph (esp. with a pretty old Canon Powershot) it was much prettier in person!