My family house used to have two enormous silver maple trees in the front yard. One of them had to be taken down a few years ago and my father had the usable wood milled. The color and grain of the wood is very striking, and I decided to make my follow-up to the Square-1 design out of this sugar maple. Not only would these two end tables serve as a prototype for the next iteration of the "Square" series, it would also be an homage to my childhood home.
I've made two tables, unofficially dubbed "river" and "tree" due to the color patterns. They're actually not the easiest things to photograph with a digital camera; there is so much pink and red in the wood that the whole photo tends to get tinted pink or orange. In trying to compensate for that hue, photo-editing software tends to wash out the colors of the photo. The result is such that the darker parts of the wood are a bit pinker in reality, and the lighter parts of the wood are a bit more white. I may be an amateur designer, but I'm no photographer!
I do love the color and grain of the Square-2 design, but I must admit that Square-1 was easier to work on; Black paint covers almost any mistake!
One of my favorite things to laugh about in Japan was the legendary status of the Tanuki. They're a fun little critter that is often described as a raccoon, though it's an entirely different animal. I've only seen one in real life at a zoo, and I wouldn't really know how to describe it other than "smaller and pointier" than a raccoon.
Anyway, legend has it (according to two Japanese people I know, so obviously it must be true what I say) that Tanuki are notoriously crafty. Certainly, Japanese folk tales featuring Tanuki do tend to accentuate the naughty things they do. Western raccoons are fairly naughty in real life, so I can see why Tanuki might be translated the way they are.
But I digress. The real reason I'm posting is to talk about Tanuki balls. I remember the first time I noticed them. I was standing outside a restaurant and noticed a statue of this weird owl/bear looking creature. I asked what it was, and I was told it was a Tanuki. I also asked why he had enormous testicles. Accordingly, I was told that his balls represented his enormous luck, and any restaurant that has a Tanuki statue was rewarded with good luck. So if you're ever in Japan, you'll see a lot of these guys around. You might even see some in the States.
Tanuki balls represent good luck with money (or so I've been told). It's interesting to note that very long hanging earlobes also represent good luck, I believe also with money. As such, you see a lot of Buddha/Hotei statues with very very long earlobes. I suppose we may further assume that hanging body parts in general provide good luck.
Recently I've been using my spare time creatively and (I like to think) productively. As one of my many interests is interior design, I took the time to brush up on AutoCAD and make some designs. Not only does this help me regain long-unused skills, but it results in an actual physical object! Quite the accomplishment, these days.
In any case, here is the result, dubbed "Square-1" and first in a series. It's the very first of its type and pretty much a prototype, but I gave it as a gift and it is serving quite well in its capacity as a coffee table. Have a look:
The car I'm currently sometimes able to use is a throwback to the early 90s, with only a tape player and radio for musical selection. The tape player spits out those tape adapters you can use with an iPod, leaving me with the radio.
Bad as radio is, I spend hours with my finger on the "seek" button trying to find a decent song. I tend to average about one per twenty minutes of constant seeking. It passes the time and isn't as sleep-inducing as the hum of the tires on the road.
In Boston, there is a fairly decent selection of stations from which to choose: rock, hip-hop, classical, pop, and fringe indie stuff. I noticed on my way back to Western MA from Boston yesterday that as I progressed further into the country, the more and more the main choice of music was country. By the time I was still a half an hour from my home, the overall number of stations had dwindled from over twenty to less than ten, of which five were playing solid voice-twangin' boo-hooin' crapass country music.
Really gives you an idea of the kind of place I live in.