7-31-2011

I spent my whole day on this street, then ate pizza that comes with honey. My day was really a lot more eventful than my pictures look.

7-30-2011

We ran a race at the zoo. It was fast and really hot. I asked a cheetah to make me faster. After running, we walked even more in the even hotter and looked at animals. These are my favorites.

This giraffe likes to eat.
Nicole got to feed it a leaf.
She probably wishes she could feed this little cat a mouse.
This little cat probably wishes it could eat a baby.
This (kind of?) cat has a hamster wheel.
This is a rare and exotic bird.
I like turtles.
I have no idea what these two were doing though.
This one is old.
This is the vegetarian fish that learned how to eat people on Monster Quest.
That would be weird if butterflies learned to eat people.
This one is looking at you.
This guy reminds me of Sea World.
This bear shakes like a dog.
This bear cub has a bath tub (that rhymes).
The bear cubs were my favorite thing at the zoo.
It's pretty rare to see this bear with its eyes open.
We made commercials for these guys at work.
Bye.

7-29-2011

I'm moving. Unfortunately, I'm not taking my talents to South Beach, but rather moving around the corner and down the hall to a new office with a window for my toys to look out of! I even have a giant piece of paper for a coloring wall (even though I'm too intimidated to draw anything on it yet). This is all very exciting for me, which I'm sure you know if you read about my closet office (which is now going to be returned to its intended use of storage) last week. So after almost three years in my little orange closet (1-4-10), this is where I'll be every weekday for the next who knows how long. I'm going to go look outside now. Bye.

7-28-2011

Nicole likes berries like I like tacos. These all grew in our yard this year. This red one came from a plant my friend Victor gave us when we first got the house, and we've managed not to kill it after all these years (the plant not the house). The black ones randomly started growing in our yard this year and are now declared as protected nature preserve from the lawn mower.

7-27-2011

Ok, so I realize I've been posting a lot of pictures of creepy little bugs, but my pepper plants just introduce me to a lot of weird looking stuff that I think is interesting. And really, this isn't that weird. Remember all those lady bugs doin' it on my plants on 6-22-11? Well I guess it worked, because their eggs hatched, and now I have lady bug larvae on my plants! This is a good thing because they eat tons of aphids (aphids are bad for my peppers). I think it's cool watching entire life cycles happen on the leaves of my plants over time. After larvae hatch from eggs, they'll run around and eat a ton of aphids, then make a little pupa shell. Then the pupa hatches as a full adult lady bug to start the cycle all over again.

7-26-2011

With all the running and trying to be healthy that we've been doing, it seems like forever since I drank super fancy grandpa scotch. Meeting up with a friend is always a great excuse to visit a new place that I've been meaning to check out. Especially since said place happens to have a whole wall of whisky. This is exciting. Also exciting was finding crazy orb-weaver spider webs. The one above is pretty perfect compared to this crazy one. Maybe this spider catches more bugs, but it probably just drank too much scotch before making its web.

These new glowing shoes will undoubtedly make Nicole faster...which will help this weekend.

7-25-2011

So yeah, I post a lot of pictures of food. What can I say? I tend to take pictures of things that I like, and there aren't many things that I like doing more than eating. Besides, these are kind of special. They're truffled fried yucca from a (not bougie) chain restaurant. That makes them special because 1) I'm hoping that truffle oil is going to become a trend ingredient in lots of places everywhere, and 2) this is preparation for the real truffle I'm planning on eating on vacation! It's still forever away, but I'm already getting really ready to go go go.

7-24-2011

Look, I have a new girlfriend with black hair. We tried to go walk in a park we've never been to before, but she got attacked by bugs and ran away. Otherwise, I've been doing a really poor job of taking pictures of the stuff we do. I did attempt to buy more running stuff, but got scared of these diesel mannequins and ran away. We do other stuff too, but recently we've been mostly just been doing a lot of running. I don't take pictures of running. I do however take pictures of indulgent, post-run Cheeseburger Tour at B Spot. I don't think anything in the world ever taste better than heart attack food immediately after running six miles. Heart attack food includes onion rings fried in lard with some of the best sauce ever. It also includes White Russian Rootbeer Floats (with snaky rings) named after Coen brothers' movies.

7-23-2011

We went a lot of places and did a lot of stuff today. I just shot a few things that I though should be black and white.

7-22-2011

I'm no spider expert, but the internet tells me that this is a "Daring Jumping Spider." The internet also tells me that they don't make webs, but use their spinnerets to make a little bungee cord for when they jump off of things. Even more interesting, I read that they can be taught to remember different colors, and are "curious" because they're known to look right at you if you pay attention to them.

Far less interesting, here's a sad broken bird egg.

7-21-2011

It's a million degrees outside, and Nicole is really serious about going to dinner tonight. Since it's so hot, we decided to go for a walk instead of even attempting to run and die of heatstroke. Our walks pretty much consist of acting like 8 year olds that snuck out of the house past bedtime. I chased lightning bugs and trapped one in my shirt. Nicole captured a really big toad (who in turn peed on her hand as punishment). We brought our new pets home so we could make them walk around on two legs like a little person, and to take serious portraits of them. This is the toad making the same face as Nicole's picture from dinner. Look how big this toad is. I tried my very best (for hours) to get a picture of the firefly's light, but this is the best I could get.

7-20-2011

Is your passport ready? Because Nicole and I just booked plane tickets. That's right everyone, we're going to Detroit! I don't think I've ever heard my credit card literally weep before. Actually, I'm sure I did the last time I bought a lens for my camera. Speaking of camera lenses, I put on my arty lens and took some artsy pictures like this today.

7-19-2011

So I've posted before about how the trail runs I go on are really really pretty, but obviously I don't run with my giant, Asian tourist sized camera strapped to my back. I really wish I could though, because this is the second time I've seen an owl in the woods, but only had a cellphone. Yeah, that dark blob in the center of the frame is a huge, awesome owl that actually flew right in front of us across the path. So instead of a sweet owl face, you get to see my peppers. It's kind of interesting how my two habanero plants are growing drastically different colored peppers though.

7-18-2011

Nicole's snake, SnakeSnake has a fancy new house.

7-17-2011

Today I learned that Tremont tastes like a whole roasted pig.

7-16-2011

Right by the project playground from yesterday, we spent the day on this pier in the very tropical paradise of Lake Erie. We looked out at the water and added to the history of Euclid Beach Park.

7-15-2011

I spent the day on a playground next to some projects with some new friends (above), painting various things to match our clothes.

7-14-2011

Tonight I went on a really beautiful and totally picturesque trail run, but you get to see a giant phallic building owned by a televangelist. You're welcome.

7-13-2011

So I have an office at work. That sounds cool right? I mean, at least I'm not in a cubicle, and I have enough privacy that I can listen to Waka Flocka as loud as I want all day. How can that be bad? It's not as awesome as it sounds. It's actually a closet. Like if they run out of space to store brooms and vacuum cleaners some day, I would be the first person to be relocated (and probably to a cubicle). In any case, said closet has two GIANT air conditioning vents right above me specifically designed to create an absolute zero environment while simultaneously inflicting permanent hearing damage. In the summer, I often feel like and Eskimo working at an airport. Well today, I decided to finally do something about it and blocked off the vents with cut up cardboard boxes. Beautiful. As a designer, I felt obligated to at least make a weak attempt to raise the aesthetic value of my new decor. So I made an illustration of Ceiling Cat to watch over my office. If your brain hasn't been entirely indoctrinated by the internet, and you have no idea why I would draw a cat peeking out of a hole over my head to look at every day, read this. Yes, I'm aware that I'm a total nerd.

7-12-2011

I spent my lunch break laying in my car eating free vegetarian pizza and watching clouds move across the sky for an hour. I like this.

7-11-2011

Nicole read that someone somewhere said that drinking chocolate milk after running was really good for you. I can't vouch for the credibility of this practice...but I don't really care. I can vouch for my love of chocolate milk. Besides, today has been exactly three months of running with my iPhone app, and I've run this many miles, so I feel entitled to drink as much sugar as I want after all my huffing and puffing.

7-10-2011

Today is Sunday. For some people that means going to church, but for people who practice Nicole's religion, that means going to brunch. Sometimes I get confused and start singing hymns to the waitstaff then fall asleep while they're reading me the the daily specials. They don't tend to mind too much as long as we tip well.

Running shoes are starting to take over our house and I'm totally fine with that.

Actually, Nicole got her hot pink nerd shoes today to impress the fish while we go creek walking. I found this rock and made Nicole carry it home because I didn't have any pockets. We hiked all the way to here to go swimming, but you might be able to tell that the water was a little bit cold emasculating freezing. Thank God for the sun. Nicole likes the sun too.

7-9-2011

So the internet told me that if I want my pepper plants to make as many peppers as they possibly can, all of the flowers need to be cross pollinated by hand using a paint brush. I felt pretty stupid (and a little bit dirty) helping flowers do it for the past few weeks, but I tend to do whatever the internet tells me to. Today, I realized that I really didn't have to do this, because this was already happening the natural way with little tiny bees that are so small that I hadn't noticed them before. I wonder if they have little tiny stingers.

Recently, Nicole and I haven't really been doing that much Cheeseburger Tour-ing (mostly because we've been too busy eating tacos), but today we decided to go check out this place we always drive by but never stop at. I like how super retro Americana the place looks, and they have pretty good cheeseburgers too. They also have ice cream to assist Nicole's ice cream every weekend this summer diet that we've also been slacking on.

In the summer time, when people talk about "family stuff," it almost always refers to sitting in lawn chairs outside and eating all together too much junk food and desserts. Today was filled with not one, but two "family stuffs." I didn't take any pictures though because neither event was with my side of the family (which was probably a good thing). I do feel like it's pretty rude to shove cameras in Nicole's relative's faces, much less friend's sister's neighbor's faces though, so just imagine me getting fat off of pizza and cookies for twelve hours straight.

7-8-2011

We live in Cleveland. It's probably pretty clear that I do as much as I can to get away from here as much as possible, but sometimes (the summer and fall) it's not so bad. Some people on the other hand have die hard, inexplicable Cleveland nationalism. As a result, tonight we went to this place for a (nother) store opening party/basement full of locally made and Cleveland themed (so your baby can match the building above) stuff. A lot of it was surprisingly good, but I feel like I'm too old to wear snarky tank tops about Lake Erie. I'm not too old however to sit on patios on warm nights and drink fancy drinks with Nicole. Nicole is somewhat suspicious of said fancy drink though.

7-7-2011

When I was a little kid, my mom tried to teach my sister and I Chinese by playing a cassette tape of weird sing-a-long songs. One song was about a mouse eating oil, but the one that sticks out in my mind the most was about flies being dirty. All these years later, I don't really speak any Chinese, but I did develop a permanent association between flies and filth.

I took a picture of this because it's kind of cool seeing such a perfect circle created unintentionally. I'm pretty sure this is bullet proof glass or something, but I don't know who would be shooting guns at an office building/Indian buffet.

My pepper plants are doing great. These are baby habanero peppers that grew from buds and flowers like this. I think some of these Thai chilies should start changing colors any day now.

7-6-2011

This is what I do with my Wacom tablet light while I'm waiting for clients. Yes, I know the lightsaber should be green, and he's wearing the wrong color shirt.

Totally unrelated, this is what a baby nymph grasshopper katydid(!) looks like. I hadn't seen one in so long (like since I was a little kid so long) that I forgot what they looked like.

7-5-2011

A penny shy of what I think gas stations are. I drive too much.

7-4-2011

Nothing says the Fourth of July like an abandoned red white and blue gas station...or family picnics with Nicole's family (who I have a policy of not randomly taking pictures of). Nicole made this though, and it doesn't get creeped out by me taking pictures of it. I also took a picture of this because it looks cool. Speaking of gas stations, this looks like a great idea right? Yeah, people in Cleveland are really into fireworks. I mean, who isn't? So we went to the half destroyed building by the bridge that I posted about last weekend to watch things explode.

7-3-2011

So beyond good parties and doing hoodrat stuff with my friends, this place also has a high Mexican population. That means really really good tacos. That means tacos for breakfast before before getting back on the highway and taking off to another state. This is foreshadowing for tomorrow. So the other day, I posted how Nicole's favorite store had brand labeled water bottles. In an appropriate correlation of relative scale, my favorite store has brand labeled water towers. Yeah! We're going to another Cabela's. It's a lot like the last store we went to a few weeks ago with the crazy taxidermy of stuff like elephants and bears and rattle snakes, so you can probably just read the 6-19-11 post for a better written explanation, but long story short...this store rules. This is the closest I ever want to be to a skunk. I like turtles.

So the main reason I made Nicole visit another store even though it was out of the way and we just went to one recently was so I could see the aquarium again. Seeing all these fish is pretty much my favorite thing right now. Look at these walleye eye balls and this albino catfish. Speaking of catfish, Nicole saw something weird hiding in the back corner of the fish tank. No one else noticed it because we were all distracted by all the other cool stuff, but luckily Nicole is better at looking at things than everyone else. So, look at this...this is a 4-5foot catfish living in a fish tank. I want one for my bathtub.

So Cabela's is actually a store, but this time we just looked around and didn't really buy anything. We did buy this penny for 50cents, and Nicole got a cheeseburger make out of elk for Cheeseburger Tour, but I doubt that pennies and food are their main target sales groups. Did anyone know that they still make Grey Poupon?

Ok, so I really don't feel like writing any more since I've been catching up on my stupid blog for hours, but look at this dancing lion, jumping cat, and this crazy scary wolf. Best store ever.

7-2-2011

I was too busy having fun again all day to take any good pictures. I did take a picture of people talking about some weird clouds until it got dark. I actually took a lot more pictures, but they're just for me to look at. I don't really feel like putting what my friends and I do all over the internet. We do buy delicious pizza though and you can see that.

7-1-2011

This is the first official pepper on my pepper plants. I actually just noticed that there are a few of them, but this one's the biggest and must have been growing in hiding for the past few days. I guess I must have just been distracted the past few days because I've been counting down minutes to get out of town to eat tacos all weekend. Actually, my friend Tony was DJing an out of town party. Party pictures are pretty self explanatory, so yeah...get jealous. We have more fun than you do. See, pictures of a party. My friends rule. It's no big deal right? I probably should have taken more/better pictures, but I was too busy having fun. That will actually be kind of a theme for this whole weekend. One thing that I did take a lot of pictures of was this lady eating and blowing fire because it was too much of a spectacle to ignore. Who does this or this in the middle of a crowded party?