transportation alternatives
It have been very warm here for a few days, leading to the realization on the part of any number of people that a heat wave is in fact a thing. Perhaps it is an annual realization. The worst part for me is that I can't hear the words without thinking of a rather bad song. I guess they can't all be winners, even for Irving Berlin. En tout cas: Harvey and I have been hanging out at home and doing what we can to manage our heat exposure, which is mostly accomplished by heading out for expeditions on the bike.
It seems counter-intuitive, certainly, to choose a human-powered mode of transportation when the news outlets are broadcasting heat advisories and things, and we do get some odd looks from motorists. But a little bit of driving in the car today (we had to take Rascal to somewhere he could swim) showed us that, in today's weather at any rate, biking is actually cooler than driving. At least, than driving in my car with it's regrettably inefficient air-conditioning. The movement of the bike even at low speed creates a wonderful cooling breeze, an effect that isn't replicated by the much faster air around the car: not enough of it gets in, not nearly enough to counteract the effects of sitting inside a metal-and-glass box. The only thing to be careful of is going too fast. Start to work too hard, of course, and that breeze doesn't have a chance of dissipating the heat that'll quickly build up. Now if only I could find a way of dissipating the huge clouds of smugness that envelop me after I travel anywhere by bicycle...
baby oktokaidekapus
Okay, so I work in online marketing. In the boring IT space, but still. That's what I do all day. I read up on best practices. Blogs. Twitter. I do a lot of data analysis. My job is to keep my clients relevant on the internet.
My stuff on the other hand? Not taking a hint. There was this fantastic idea tossed about over at paperpools a while ago: make some sort of t-shirt design referencing to The Last Samurai. I instantly wanted to try something out. I asked Dan to draw the picture.
Then I said, I'm getting a serger for my birthday. Why not wait a week and make the whole t-shirt from scratch?
Then I took some time threading the serger. Then adjusting the tension. Weeks went by. I made the base but got stuck at the sleeves.
I asked Dan again to draw the pattern, but a moment later I asked him to make dinner.
I made the shirt sans logo and poked Dan in the ribs saying "I can't draw!" but then Harvey needed a clean t-shirt and so he got just a plain gray t-shirt for a while.
There was an interruption in the project for Harvey's birthday. I had to sew an ark.
Then I got rolling again. Is this story taking a long time? I stopped for a while to read The Last Samurai and that was much more interesting. Dan made a beautiful design and we tested a t-shirt transfer but the test looked crappy. We decided to print on fabric and applique the printed piece to the shirt. That required a bit of a re-design. Dan had to do the same work three times because Illustrator kept quitting.
But finally! We have the shirt. Only it appears the original inspirational conversation occured on April 17th. See? There's your lesson on how not to be relevant on the internet.
18 arms to hold you
At any rate, he looks just adorable. Here is the source design. You can verify for yourself the number of legs.
The t-shirt is made from jersey knit and totally serged, which means the actually sewing part of this project only took like a total of 45 minutes. Embarrassing. Oh well, it's the cute baby picture that counts in the end.
count the legs, they're all there!
At the bottom left of the image you can just glimpse a container of bubble suds. He's saying "bubble" now, my little brilliant boy. Novels next year, I think.