Byrdhouse

Dear Fellow People of Carmel, California

We would like to extend congratulations to ourselves for having the very best town in the world! Although the voting was only open to in-town residents, we think it goes without saying that Carmel really deserved this highly coveted honor once again. That's twenty years running! To commerate, we have imported the world's finest small-caps-named artists to create bourgeois paintings of our charming town. These will be for sale throughout our hilltop village in every one of our thirty "art" galleries, so please grab one for your tea room before visitors get their grubby hands on them. 

We are also pleased to announce the opening of even more jewelers! They will be sprinkled between the authentic alpine-themed cafes proudly brewing starbucks brand coffee. Commemorative diamond studded brioches are being forged, so you can show just how proud you are to live here. 

Congratulations again, people of Carmel. God bless our (award-winning) town!

Cruise Boat Balconites

Take your time here; it's a slow, methodic opening. Fullscreen is better. HD Version on Vimeo is even better.

There's a few great moments in people watching history happening. Eventually you'll also see the people in the reflections. I took this while on vacation.

Answers to the questions you have about my bike

I've been riding a Giant Freedom DX for about 5 months now. Here are some common questions I get while out riding.

   

Why's that front hub so big? There's an electric motor in it. A rechargeable lithium ion battery on the back provides pedal assist.

    

Isn't that like cheating? Yes, probably. I really just want to ride and this gets me out there more.

   

Do you have to pedal? Yes. It is decidedly a bicycle and rides like one. There's no throttle like an electric mo-ped. It is most like those moving sidewalks at the airport, you just go farther faster. As you pedal extra torque naturally matches your work. You can also ride without the battery, and that is a great thing too.

Where Do Chicken Nuggets Come From?

 

We went to see Banksy's installation of animatronics entitled, "Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill" now running on Seventh Avenue near Bleeker Street. It's like the hall of presidents only with fish sticks and hot dogs instead of presidents. See more videos and images here.

Yesterday's Future, Today

A visit to the Kennedy Space Center in photos.

MA Guide Book

Design is Human - May 6-11

I'm proud to announce the MA08: Design Is Human event in Atlanta May 6-11, 2008.

MA is the result of the vision and efforts of Bernard McCoy and Elayne DeLeo to unify the greater Atlanta design community through modern home tours and events throughout the city. I have been fortunate to have been involved on the branding-concept-strategy-design side of things. It’s been a team affair of armchairs, pc students and design friends.

Join us, explore some of those homes you've had your eye on during the Modern Atlanta Home Tour. Other highlight events include the wine tasting at Poliform SWITCH, the Belgium Design & Fashion Event for Darfur, and the Launch Party at Mason Murer Gallery.

Ticket prices vary. Many events are free. More information is available at the MA web site.

McCormick Tribune Campus Center

This is by Rem Koolhaas OMA at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. The school is Mies van der Rohe's old stomping grounds. See the Full Gallery here.

Concrete for Miles

Montreal

Train Ride In Tokyo

For your viewing pleasure, a movie clip of riding the train in Tokyo.

The Dunes

[Kitty Hawk, NC]

At the Border

[South of the Border]

June has been our travel month. We recently drove out to the Outer Banks for a fair share of lighthouses, hang gliding, and Wright Brothers memorials. We spent much of the time at the beach with an igloo stuffed with brew-skies.

The image above comes from our lunch stop at South of the Border, a campy exit off I-95 that boasts a truly American roadside experience, mexican-style. There's hundreds of billboards before you ever get to the exit, each featuring Pedro and a poorly constructed pun. Floridians will recognize it as the Ron Jon's technique in highway marketing. I will admit to you that I circled it on the roadmap with a highlighter days before. I actually wanted to go there. I'm a sucker for run-down kitsch. As my brother yawned and Florrie piped "Why did we stop here, again?" I silently took images of booths clad in vinyl cow prints.

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Headed South

We're traveling to Austin this weekend for SXSW because we heard you had something important to say about:

a) your new book
b) accessibility and web standards
c) wireless stuff
d) blogging

Hot Air

Suburbia is such a strange thing to observe from a couple hundred feet. This weekend we went for a hot air balloon ride over Atlanta's northern sprawl. A hot air balloon ride is one thing, but in the Remax balloon, now that is whole 'nutha adventure. I spent most of the time dangling over the basket's edge, snapping images of the suburban landscape. It made Florrie very nervous. Dog's barked, kids followed, and when we landed in that cul de sac, it was quite a neighborhood spectacle. View some images from the trip.

The pilot's cheese ball humor, which deserved a drum kit's 1-2-crash, was always accented with a good tug on the balloon's fuel gauge.

Experience The W

Who needs another gadget? For my birthday this year we opted for a getaway at the W Hotel Atlanta. Stunningly styled for the modern metrosexual, this hotel group is a destiniation for any traveler living the designer lifestyle. We made it a weekend, sped across town and enjoyed a relaxing time in luxury. We discovered tasty pan-asian cusine (more commonly marketed as "fusion" cusine) at the deliciously sassy Savu, the hotel's premiere restaurant. But let's not kid ourselves here, the W is in Dunwoody, far away from the urban setting it attempts to elicit. But the bathrooms were grand and the in-room catalogs kept us in reach of the city lifestyle.