For a recovering WoW-aholic and a Star Wars super fan, this does not look good for my productivity. I personally will probably refrain from joining this MMORPG I do like the cinematics and really enjoyed this trailer.
Over the weekend, Steve Eves launched a rocket that he constructed in his garage. The rocket was a 1/10th scale model of a Saturn V rocket, which is the same rocket that propelled Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to their moon landing.
The successful launch and recovery of Eves’ rocket put him in the record books with the largest (36ft tall) and heaviest (1648 lbs) amateur rocket.
Seeing the video reminded me of building model rockets when I was younger. I have always had a love of rocketry. Maybe it is just me being a nerd, but I love to see a rocket launch and imagine how cool it would be to be strapped in at the top of the rocket.
You can read the full article here
Kinda makes me want to get back into building rockets and shooting some video.
Fireworks example I tried
As a web designer, I occasionally try to exercise my graphic design skills. First to be clear, I am not a graphic designer. Almost all designers get to play with toys like Photoshop, unfortunately, I don’t own a copy so I make do with Fireworks.
I found this tutorial at Six Things. I found the tutorial pretty easy to follow for someone graphically challenged like me. I will definetely give the other ones a shot in hopes of figuring out the core concepts of Fireworks.
Lastly, I wanted to demo a font I recently downloaded.
Over the weekend, some friends and I took a road trip to Albuquerque, NM to celebrate another friend’s wedding. I’ve been to ABQ many times with my parents growing up, but this is the first time I’ve been able to really explore the city.
In my own words I would describe Albuquerque as a hybrid of Flagstaff and Tucson. While in ABQ, we were able to check out some of what the city has to offer.
One of our first stops was breakfast at Frontier Restaurant. This place was highly recommended as a great place to have some breakfast. I ordered the breakfast burrito, and was pleasantly surprised at the generous portion of green chile (yum!)
After the wedding, we decided to try out some of the area’s local brews. Our next destination was Chama River Brewery. The overall consensus of our group was that the beers were lacking in taste, but I like to think that I don’t discriminate. Most of the beers were drinkable with a couple that stood out, but there were a couple that I considered undrinkable. My favorites were (in no particular order) the Rio Chama Amber Ale, the Brown Ale (I don’t remember the name), and the Sleeping Dog Stout. I could not finish the Golden Lager or the Honey Wheat. I will mention that the Jackrabbit IPA was “interesting.” The IPA had the signature hops, but it also had a taste of juniper berries, I would have to say that while interesting, I wouldn’t want to have more than a sample.
On the last day there, we tried some “New Mexican” food. I won’t comment much but I will say that I still prefer the Sonoran flavor of Tucson Mexican food.
Overall, we drove 14 hours, lost an hour … then gained an hour, and caught up with a bunch of old friends.
Vimeo Tribute: Star Wars from Casey Donahue on Vimeo.
Geeks?, Star Wars? what more could you ask for?
As a web designer/developer, one thing I get to play with a lot are fonts. When I first started, I used whatever was in the system font folders (Times New Roman, etc)
I have recently tried to branch out and find some new stuff. About half of these fonts are in the system folder, but make great serif alternatives to Times New Roman.
The other half are available freely online.
One font that I absolutely love is Helvetica, but I have yet to purchase it.
Lastly, I would like to point out that I really can’t stand Papyrus. I see it all over town when a business or print designer wanted to make something “exotic” or “southwestern” or “native american.”
Fonts I love, plus one I can't stand.
What are your favorites/least favorite fonts?
I found this video through a web designer that I follow on twitter named Paul Boag (I also listen to his podcast). I’ve watched a lot of scifi over the years and have seen some parallels between such movies as The Matrix and the Gospel in the Bible. From his description, he put this presentation together because he was speaking to a mixed audience of children and adults. I think he did a great job communicating something that kids (or web geeks) may potentially find boring and making it interesting.
Science Fiction Parable from Paul Boag on Vimeo.
I am convinced that Tucson has plenty to offer when it comes to stuff to do on the weekends with family and friends. With that said, I don’t know of a definitive guide to stuff to do in Tucson. Online guides that do exist out there give off an impersonal impression, sort of a glorified yellow pages. A couple of months ago, I thought about doing something about it. The problem is, I tend to have a very short attention span and any new ideas I come up with tend to become old ideas within a couple of weeks.
This site seems to be one of the few creative outlets for me that has persisted over the years, so I will just throw out those ideas and develop content here and thanks to the magic of categories and tags could pull them out if they turn into something cool.
So here goes, my first second attempt at cataloging fun stuff to do in Tucson.
First off, Happy President’s Day.
Now you history buff you, can you remember the names of all of the United States Presidents?
I was only able to get 39 out of 44. I was kicking my self on the remaining four though.
Add your results in the comments!
After years of posting stuff here, I have decided on a whim to clean the slate.
I once started this site as a glimpse into my life and interests, since then I have switched subjects to tech and the web, to web design tricks and tutorials, etc.
Due to lack of time to research subjects in depth to write about, I am embracing my own quirkiness and will blog about whatever topic is on the top of my mind at the time, whether it be stuff from my life, or tech news, or web design, or more.