Barack-O-Rama

Adromischus cristatus

Here's one of the ones I couldn't find earlier this morning:

Adromischus cristatus

i really like succulents

It seems like only a short while ago Babetron and I bought our very first succulent plants.
We now have at least thirteen varieties in the house. They are so small and weird looking, I can't help but want to collect and grow all the new varieties as we find them. So today I am going to dig around online and find photos of each of the plants I have been able to procure so far.

Crassula ovata
We have two varieties of this species:
Jade Plant













and Hobgoblin Fingers (also called Gollum Fingers)


















Anacampseros telephiastrum
















Two varieties of the Haworthia family:
Haworthia Cooper














And Haworthia Reinwardtii also known as "Zebra Pillar"


















Pachyphytum Bracteosum














We have a couple of Sempervivum plants as well.
Sempervivum arachnoideum














And also Sempervivum montanum Although it's hard to say for sure. There are so many Sempervivum plants out there. We have the generic kind purchased at Home Depot and Ikea. These are usually referred to as "Chicks and Hens"












Sedum dasyphyllum
Maybe. I know it looks like something from the Sedum family. To be honest, it is pretty hard to pin point something exactly. There are so many varieties of plants...













Crassula arborescens














There are at least three more. I know one is commonly referred to as a "Pie Plant" and I have no idea what the other two are called. But I have spent way too long on this post as it is. Also, if I made any mistakes or labeled anything incorrectly please feel free to correct me. Most of my information was just pulled from the internet doing image searches, and digging around various sites for clues.

new process

I just started building a new set of stretcher bars for my next painting last night. I've never used this process before. Actually lately I've grown pretty complacent, and have just been using 2x2" beams. they are often a little warped, or twisted so it makes the whole process less than ideal and even downright mediocre. So I've decided to buy 1x3" poplar planks and then glue a strip of 1" molding to edges. this will provide a nice lift for the canvas, and any warping in the beams themselves is almost nonexistent. My only fear at this point is the see how the frame holds up, or possibly warps once I wrap the canvas taught around the stretcher bars. Hopefully I can nullify this as much as possible using cross beams and metal joint supports.
Anyway, here is a photo of me gluing the molding to one of the poplar beams.

Two types of people in the world...

There are two types of people in the world.
1) The first type of person thinks that any cover song is "way better than the original."
2) The second type of person just had ravioli for dinner.

Actually, the post was going to originally say that the first type of person can't admit when their favorite band puts out a mediocre album. But then I was thinking about this Rage Against the Machine cover of "Straight Edge" I was listening to in the car and I just thought to myself, "Minor Threat had those fat guitar sounds! Rage sounds all flat in comparison." And I think that was one of the first times in recent memory where I didn't like the cover better than the original.

Also, how come I never update this blog anymore?

the space between two dots

Tybot drove me to work this morning, and i started waxing philosophical about direction -- a mild version of the "why am i here? where am i going?" questions you ask during life's crossroads.

it spawned from listening to the New Pornographers' Twin Cinema album this morning while getting ready. this is a band that was introduced to me via what i would later recognize as a very ugly situation, but i would never have suspected it then. at the time, i thought the band was ok -- but ironically, now years later i love the band, even with the awareness of the context. the bigger picture, if you will.

as one example of a larger point i was trying to make, i said it struck me as ironic how big twists can sometimes start in places or things you would never suspect.

anyway -- i was deep in thought, thinking about starting points and middle points and what comes next and said, "i feel like i'm at a line between the dots and don't quite know where the next dot is -- or what the big picture will end up being."

to be expected, Tybot had the answer and responded perfectly:

"yeah, like connect the dots. a lot of times it's a giraffe."







so there you have it.

i'm a girl of simple tastes

as for today, i like...

• waking up to sunshine on a Friday morning and knowing i don't have to go to work
• being out the door by 9:30 a.m., with Nikes on my feet, sunglasses on my head and a book in tote
• reading by Lake Michigan until lunchtime (or in this case until i finish the book -- about three hours later)
• walking back home with Grant Park, the Museum Campus, Soldier Field and Chicago's spectacular skyline as the backdrop (this is my neighborhood? seriously? a year and a half living in the city and it still feels new)
• coming home to our airy loft
• tossing some fresh pasta with avocado then rummaging through Tybot's studio for a bit
• finding the perfect painting for our west wall
• flipping through a design/architecture magazine (while admiring our view of the Sears Tower from the living room couch)
• taking a two-hour nap
• waking up just in time to walk back down Michigan and catch the last hour of Radiohead at Grant Park (yeeeeah- i got in!)

Tybot gets home from camping tomorrow -- i'm pretty excited about that too.

that also probably explains why i'm blogging on a friday night.

k,byeeee.

Link dump

Hello, I am dumping a bunch of links here for easy access. Feel free to check them out, if you so desire.

http://tylerspurgeon.wikidot.com/
a wiki site that I set up to meta organize and document myself.

http://tylerspurgeon.wikidot.com/forum:start
the forum i set up at said wiki site. please feel free to jump on and post about whatever you'd like.

www.tylerspurgeon.com
this is probably the most important one for now. this will be a personal website where people can access images of my paintings. it's still in beta phase, and i'm busy uploading files at the moment. it probably won't be live for another day or so.

so proud of tybot

tybot sold another painting this weekend. "girl with gas mask" has now joined the ranks of tybot collector pieces. here it is on our living room floor during the final cradling process. i love this photo, and it's a fantastic painting. definitely a favorite among visitors to the tybot/babetron abode.




(by the way -- congratulations, miss benne, on your stunning new art acquisition!)

the pinecone

and by daily i mean...

So, I’ve decided to start blogging my Web findings-of-the-day (on a non-daily basis). At work I’m constantly coming across brilliant sites and interesting news bits that I think I might want to reference later. Most of these get shot to Tybot’s gmail in rapid succession with nothing more than a "so cool!" or other equally descriptive subject line as intro. I think he might appreciate me sharing these a little more constructively.

Today I have two sites that struck my fancy:

The first –- Triangle Battle. The loading page is clever and the interactivity gives the site a novelty value before you even get to the content, which is also good. How could I not be in full support of something that incorporates music, charity and plastic figurines?

The second Web site belongs to this 100% authentic little Mexican joint next door, which I frequent without remorse on a monthly basis. I promise you will not regret clicking every link on the site – the Flash animation is a treat. Follow it up with a vegetarian fajita burrito and now you’re really talking.

succulents

My brother-in-law introduced Babetron and myself to succulent plants. They are amazing and we both really like them. We decided to plant some of our very own. Here is a photo:

Hopefully someone can look at the photo and tell me exactly what we just bought. I think one of them is a "jade" plant, but I'm really not sure.

I. AM. IRON MAN.

(Disclaimer: for those of you who are interested in wedding video and photos...they are on their way. This post, however, is pure pop drivel.)

With the Iron Man movie coming out tomorrow, I've been constantly humming Black Sabbath's tune of the same name over and over and over in my head. So when I got to work today I wanted to look up the lyrics so I could actually sing it. To my surprise, the lyrics and song are completely awful. The only really great element to the song is that classic rift performed by Tony Iommi. But as soon as Ozzy steps up to rock the mic, I just want him to stop ruining the great guitar sound.
Now I know Sabbath has some notoriety as being a dark predecessor to modern metal, and Osborn is supposedly some rock legend. But with the exception of War Pigs I can barely sit through anything the man sings.


Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing the movie at some point this weekend. The idea of a post rehab Downey Jr. playing a booze saturated crime fighter is almost too perfect to pass up.

New Camera

Babetron and I bought a new camera last night so we can video tape the wedding. I can't wait to go home and figure out how it works. The blog will undoubtedly benefit from some DIY video posts in the future.

Eight more days!

Do I like Radiohead enough to spend $400 for tickets?

It's that time of year again. The time of year when I sit myself down and try really, really hard to rationalize spending the amount of money necessary to go to Lollapalooza. For the third year in a row what's-his-name from Jane's Addiction comes to Chicago and throws a concert that lasts for three days and three nights. And every year it's the same dilemma for me. There are the one or two bands that I actually want to see, and about 50 or so other bands that I don't really care about. But once you're inside the gates you feel obliged to stand in the crowd of musty damn-bros and stoners watching Lady Sovereign or some other b-list artist that you hadn't heard of two days earlier--the whole time thinking about how you'd really much rather be some place else entirely. I have gone to three "Music Festivals" since living in Chicago. And every single time I swore it would be the last time.

Now that I know Radiohead is going to be playing this year, the decision really couldn't be any more difficult to make. Not that Radiohead is my all time favorite band or anything. But I like OK Computer and Kid A quite a bit. I know Babetron will want to see them. And to be honest I don't really know how many opportunities like this I'll ever have to see Radiohead perform. And of course, if I don't go, then every person I meet who did go will go on to say something like this, "Oh man! It was AWESOME! It was like the best live show ever performed. Seriously. You totally missed out."

Every child has an awkward period.

It looks like mine was somewhere in between the ages of 5 and 10. And then again sometime in high school once acne kicked in.

My grandpa

My aunt Emma's unofficial role in the family is to catalog the existing photos of our extended family. She has scanned just about every photo album that belongs to my grandparents and is therefore a great source for old, rare photographs.
Yesterday I called her up and asked if she had any old photographs of little Tybot. When I opened my inbox this morning I saw this photo of me and my grandpa sitting together on the brick fence that surrounds his home. I must have been about 5 or 6 years old at the time it was taken. This was the first time in my life that I had ever seen this photo.
I really love this photo, if for no other reason than it depicts my grandfather who is one of my absolute heroes. He fought in WWII, which in my opinion was one of the last really noble wars that the U.S. can be said to have fought in. He went toe to toe with Nazi troops in Europe and he lived to tell about it. When he came home he helped his wife raise 10 children, including my mother (and aunt Emma). All of the his children were raised in the LDS church. I believe each of his 4 sons went on missions to various parts of the world. 9 of his children went on to be married--6 of them sealed in the Temple. He taught his children what it meant to put in an honest day's work.
He has suffered stroke, heart attack, grenade shrapnel to the face, infectious diseases, and a broken and fused ankle--all of if with minor complaints. I am proud to call him my grandfather.
When I arrive in Arizona for the wedding reception in a few weeks, I can not wait to introduce him to my new wife and vice versa.

Married in a fortnight

It is two weeks before Babetron and I get married. And that means today is a very special day, because today I finally have a reason to use the word "fortnight."

For those of you who don't get Chicago newspapers

Since not all of our friends and family have access to the Chicago newspaper, I decided to post sections of an article Babetron and I were in. The images were scanned from the Chicago Sun Times as it appeared February 15, 2008. The article was about couples who were recently engaged.

The photo for the front page was actually taken at the same location where I proposed to Babetron. And I was really happy that the name of my painting was mentioned in the caption under the second photo.

On Photography

Babetron printed our engagement photos yesterday and brought them over to my place last night. They look amazing, and I’ll take this opportunity to plug our wedding photographer Melissa Kelsey. If you're on our wedding mailing list you can expect to see these in your mail box soon.

Speaking of photos, I recently flipped through Stranger than Paradise—a book that showcases the work of German born photographer Stefanie Schneider. In a world where “Photoshop” is a verb it’s refreshing to see a photographer working with raw materials and employing chance to achieve a desired effect rather than leaning on the crutch of digital magic to doctor their photos.
Stefanie uses expired Poloraid film which blanches out all but the most vibrant colors. The results are often dreamy, and occasionally disturbing. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this excited about a photographer. The images with girls holding water pistols remind me of a scene from a low budget B movie.

The sci-fi undertones initially captured my interest, but Stefanie also captures motifs such as forlorn travel and trailer park despair. I found several high resolution images here for anyone interested in seeing more or her work.

welcome to the interweb

You may have heard rumors.



They are all true. Babetron and I have decided to start a blog. I mean, our faces are practically smeared all over the internet as it is. Our engagement was mentioned in a Chicago Sun Times article. And our engagement photos are accessible online as well. It's like the world wide web can't get enough of us.
I mean, pretty soon we're not even going to be able to walk down the street with out some paparazzi popping out of some bushes and taking our photo, only to have it end up next to Britney on the cover of The National Enquirer.
So rather than fight the inevitable, we have decided to post a blog in order to give the public more of what they really want--us. Because that's all the world really needs, one more self-centered blogger clogging up the internet tubes.