City of Roses

We drove down to Portland over Memorial Day Weekend with Joe and Tony for a some sun, food, drinks, and Grizzly Bear. Here are a few photos, with more on my flickr.


Celebrity Name Game Challenge to pass the time.



Really great PNW cuisine.




Color turned out really nice, didn't do anything special in post!


Late night snack after the Grizzly Bear show.

Next time I visit, I'm taking the train and bringing my bicycle. Everything I would ever want to visit is within a 5 mile radius and it's all flat. Everyone bicycles.

Fast Friday

Had our own little version of Fast Friday, riding up to Ballard after work for a Midnight Cuban Sandwich at Paseo (R.I.P. Gordo's). Then hung out at Golden Gardens and enjoyed the sunset. It's amazing how long a group of guys can entertain themselves by throwing rocks at beer cans.

Last Weekend

Saturday Ride

Saturday a few of the boys and I decided to maintain the get-off-your-ass-while-it's-still-nice-outside tip and did a little ride up to Ballard. We had lunch at the Other Coast Cafe, and as usual, the Rajun Cajun sandwich was amazing while the service and attitude was subpar. We followed that up by tossing the frisbee around at Golden Gardens.

Even a flat bike tire on the way home couldn't ruin this day.

Taking Advantage

Of one of the best Summers, weather wise, that I can remember.

Weekend Shows

Friday night Joe and I attended a fashion show by the Northwest Film Forum, Blackbird, Rue, La Rousse and Lambs Ear at Pravda Studio—which is a great venue for parties by the way. It was kind of amazing to see an actual catwalk, with actual models walking up and down the runway, and people applauding at the exceptional attire the models were wearing, in Seattle! The location, the people, the clothes, the music, all made me feel like I was in another city.

Please forgive the crappy iPhone pics, but I didn't have my camera (which I now regret)!




Saturday I went to an art opening at the Wonderful Union Gallery featuring art by Don and Ryan Clark of Invisible Creature. They created a collection of fantastic Mid-Century Modern inspired illustrated prints juxtaposed with the realities of domestic life. Definitely drop by the gallery to see some really great work.

I'm really glad to see events of this sort of scale and focus happening in Seattle. The aforementioned boutiques and Demetre and Greg are doing something really great for the local fashion and art/design community respectively.

Saturday Afternoon

Geoff McFetridge at the Olympic Sculpture Park with Joe



Then lunch at Cafe Presse where we ran into Danial, who showed us his new badass Vanagon.

Gourmet Burgers & Shoe Displays

Tara and I had dinner with Dana and Joe at his condo last night. We made the most amazing burgers ever, all from scratch. The only thing we didn't do was bake the buns and grind the meat. Good food and friends is always a great way to unwind from a hectic week.













Adrien and I also stopped by the shop yesterday to drop off the new product I shot. The night before we did some rearranging of the space and display shelving, and I think it turned out pretty well. But I'm looking forward to moving out of there and into a new space.

QBN Sessions

Adrien, Joe and I will be going to down to LA for QBN Sessions. Newstoday is actually a major contributing factor for how we—Adrien, Joe, Drew, Jason and I—all met four or five years ago. Since then we've all worked together in some form or another and it's always been on projects that I've enjoyed not necessarily because the work itself was fun—although there certainly has been plenty of fun projects—but because I got to work with them.

So we're going to be making a 4 day trip down to LA for the event. Hopefully we'll see something inspiring, and hopefully make some new friendships that are just as fruitfull as our first QBN event.

Typecon

Joe and I will be going to Typecon this year in Seattle for 48 hours (over 4 days) of nonstop talk about serifs, ascenders, descenders, swashes, ligatures, kerning, leading, x-heights, modulation, phase, cap-heights, and apertures by some of the most respected designer/type aficionados in the world.

We'll be going to the Fonts for New Technologies workshop and the rest of the main conference events and forums. It'll be nice to see people whom I've learned about and respected in person to soak up any wisdom they may share. I'm also really looking forward to seeing the Seattle premiere of Helvetica. I've read many good things from designers and non-designers and I hope it lives up to the hype.

Speaking of hype, I composed and published this post from my iPhone! It truly is delight.

Thursday Afternoon

There's something really satisfying about spending a Thursday afternoon with a couple of friends, sucking back brews (see Chris, 4th picture, right cart) and playing golf. My golf game is terrible, but I don't really mind; especially when a friend picks me up in a golf cart after I've sliced the ball into the forest and there's a drink in the cup holder waiting to ease my pain.

They Come In Waves

Joseph recently put up his work using Indexhibit, a universal / archetypal / invisible website format / Index + Exhibit / not fashionable / not a fad / designed to last / designed to be improved / designed for a variety of content / designed for a variety of users / made with good intent / made to share / made for everybody / Open Source / free.

Pup!

10 week old Rand at Drew and Joe's old apartment.

Mad Hectic

After a hectic couple of weeks, Drew, Joe and I went up to the market for lunch to relax. Two huge projects with essentially the same deadlines really makes you focus.





And for those of you that haven't already seen it, Joe's Security Pattern Collection has reached 100! Be sure to send any unique patterns you receive in the mail to him and he'll add it to the collection.

Zeitgeist Coffee

Dinner and non-work related work at Zeitgeist.


This morning coming off the viaduct, I saw this. See more instances of these great stickers on flickr.

Caffe Umbria

Today Joe, Adrien and I went to Occidental Square to have lunch at Caffe Umbria. They have excellent coffee and great panini sandwiches. It's amazing how great a few quality ingredients toasted in bread tastes.





I also got a few toys for myself.