Image courtesy of Haags Uitburo
I have a lot of varied interests: art, memory, cooking, judo, typography, rock climbing, genetics, design, tea, sleep, quantum physics… the list goes on. I’ve decided it would be a good idea to focus on a given topic for 30 days, and then formalize/synthesize everything I’ve learned into a thesis paper. I think having the goal will help motivate me, and forcing myself to collect all the disparate info will help me retain it. Read the rest of this post »
I recently got real with myself and performed an honest to goodness fault analysis. Among the myriad flaws I was finally straight with myself about, one in particular stood out from the rest: I leave a lot of things unfinished. Ask my roommate and I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to tell you about the many, many unfinished canvases scattered around the apartment. And let’s not forget about all the various remnants from ideas fully concocted but never fully realized.
This is a common occurrence among anyone with a creative streak. It is inevitable. Some projects will be left on the cutting room floor; not every idea is a good one. Pursuing bad ideas is a waste of time and the most obvious way to evoke the square peg round hole analogy I can think of.
Regardless, having half-finished ideas constantly swirling around you like the rings of Saturn CAN become a bit depressing. It also eventually begins to warp how other’s perceive you, and how you perceive yourself: you become someone who creates a lot of motion, but never has much to show for it. No one wants to be that person.
I recently launched the alpha build of TellMeItSucks.com, a website created to provide critique resources for designers who don’t have a creative department to solicit feedback from. Throughout the process, I discovered three powerful concepts for finishing projects: 1) Strictly Limiting Focus, 2) Leveraging Momentum, and 3) Bucking Perfection. Read the rest of this post »
It’s a bit of a secret passion of mine, but I’m kind of a biology geek, particularly the fields of neuroscience and genetics. Memory, the science of creativity, cloning and genetic repair, sleep deprivation, and language acquisition all get my juices flowing. Read the rest of this post »
Image courtesy of TheBMag
So I’ve been MIA for a bit and I wanted to address some of the reasons why.
First, all of my computers crashed. Yep! Within two days my desktop and my laptop both died on me. My external is ok, but I hadn’t backed up in awhile (bad Danny Boy). That means that a lot of the content I had been working on, including recipes, art, and locally saved posts went bye bye. In fact, the only photos I have left are whatever was uploaded to Flickr. Argentina: Gone. Thailand: Gone. As you may suspect, I’ve been thoroughly embracing “the cloud” as of late.
I’ve begun tinkering with Dropbox, will only compose in Google Docs, and have made a habit of sending current working files to drop.io. If anyone has any cloud backup recommendations I would love to hear them. My current “system” is a bit ad hoc.
My younger (no longer “little”) brother has also been in town for the majority of the summer. I don’t get to see him as often as I’d like, so i’ve been spending the vast bulk of my time hanging out with him. It has cut down on the already limited amout of time i had at my disposal for posts, which brings me to my next update.
Mobile posting! I had been mucking around with composing posts on my phone (during commute) via Evernote and then making them live once at a bonafide computer, but that workflow left much to be desired. Enter the WordPress iPhone app! This whole post is being composed with it. Admittedly it is my maiden voyage, but so far i’m impressed. I’ll continue to post on the go and provide a further critique in a few weeks or so.
I’ve been painting a lot lately as well (future post). Unfortunately, I also found myself in a state which I now dub “perfection paralysis” (next post), which kept me from completing a few articles. No more!
When I haven’t been hanging out with my brother, I’ve been working on a secret project that is due for alpha release at the end of this week! I’m so excited! I hope you will be too.
-Dan
My first Tea Plant (Camellia Sinensus)
I’ve often dreamt of buying a small plot of land in Asia and starting a little tea plantation. Waking up with the sun, throwing open the shutters and overlooking row after row of tea plant while I paint seems like the kind of existence I could die happy from.
I was at Flora Grubb nursery last weekend looking for a plant to add a little life to my bedroom. I had settled on a small dessert plant (which I’ve since forgotten the name of) when one of the employees asked if she could help me with anything. Without thinking, I asked if she had any tea plants. She thought she might, and hurried off to look. She came back with a lone plant – it was the last one.
I bought it.
I know all I did was shell out five bucks for a tiny tree, but I can’t help but feel as if somehow I’ve taken a significant step towards realizing a dream. You have to start somewhere right?
This is a close-up of a piece from a series I’m currently working on entitled “Identities”.
I made wooden “canvases” a few weeks ago with my buddy Lee. They were cheap, about $6 a piece for 32″ x 24″, and have since given me something new to experiment with. A lot of people paint on wood, but this was my first experience with wood as a canvas. I began to realize how beautiful the grain was and really wanted the identity of the wood to show throw.
I started thinking about how I could accomplish this, and what kind of artistic opportunities were open to me now that I was working with a rigid structure. It dawned on me that I could probably paint something in acrylic, and actually sand it down. My hunch was right.
I painted thick, let it dry, and then applied a few consecutive coats of watered down blacks and browns. The wash settled into the valleys formed by the paint, as well as the small cracks in the wood, which helped to accent the grain.
There are still a few more steps I want to take with this piece, and the series as a whole, but here is another close-up, this time of the center, and the piece as a whole, after sanding.
What do you think?
Hope to see you on Twitter!
There’s no reason for you NOT to prank someone this year.
This is one of my favorite practical jokes for a reason! It’s easy, takes about 5 seconds to set up, and it doesn’t cause any damage – so you can’t really get in trouble. The perfect crime! Happy April Fool’s Day everyone!
Quinoa, up close and personal.
Quinoa (pronounce it ‘keen-wah’ and you’ll sound smart) is an important source of nutrition in much of South America. While not quite a grain, it’s often eaten like rice, either on it’s own or as a side, and can be prepared in a myriad of ways. Recently, it’s become my staple side dish because of it’s high fiber and protein content. 1 cup of cooked quinoa has 5 grams of fiber, and 8 grams of protein (source).
It’s not very well known in the states, so it can be hard to find outside of specialty food stores. However, if you have a Trader Joes near you, you should be in luck; they carry it.
This particular recipe was gifted to me by the chef at Cava de Cano Winery in Mendoza, Argentina (pic). Like all talented chefs, he had no idea how much of each ingredient he put into the dish, so it took a bit of experimenting to get the proportions just right. It’s light and zippy, and pairs especially well with salmon and chicken.
Ingredients:
Instructions:
Combine Quinoa and water in a small pan and bring to boil. Immediately reduce to very low heat and cover. Cook for 15 minutes (or follow intructions on packaging). Do not stir. While waiting for quinoa to cook, squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl, taking care to remove any seeds, and combine with parsley, garlic, salt and pepper.
When quinoa is finished cooking, stir in lemon mixture, cover, and cook for an additional 3 minutes. Serve hot or cold.
How many of you have tried Quinoa before? I’m curious.
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Traditionally, dulce de leche can take anywhere from 2-3 hours – which means a rather large time investment for such a simple yet delicious dessert. I’ve gotten the prep time down to about 20 minutes (less, for most uses). It’s wonderfull what a little experimenting can do!
Cook time: 20 minutes (active) More time for larger batches.
Yield: 8-10 bite size caramels
Ingredients
Directions
Pour all ingredients into your pot (non-stick) and bring to a rapid boil at high heat. Stir vigorously until the milk starts to condense and darken, 8-10 minutes. Reduce heat to medium, and then low as the dulce de leche thickens. Continue to stir throughout to avoid scorching. More time in the pot yeilds a harder candy.
Notes
Tip
If you want your dulce de leche even faster, start off using sweetened condensed milk right out of the can (make sure to add the baking powder). It tastes a little different, but practically shaves off the rapid boil stage.
I really want to hear about any experiments with, or different ways to make, dulce de leche. A good friend of mine told me her family used to make it by boiling sweetened condensed milk while still in the unopened can. No stirring, but it could explode! WILD!
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I’ve held off on getting mobile internet on my phone for a few reasons. Mostly because I just don’t want to be that connected and available to everyone, and because I really don’t want an email update about my Netflix queu interrupting dinner. Sometimes, however, there are circumstances when it would be nice to have. For those times, I’ve put together a little step-by-step procedure that I’ve found useful as a way to get specific, important emails to my non internet capable phone using SMS.
It’s really easy, and if you don’t have Gmail yet, maybe this will convince you to sign up.
1. Sending email from your phone. Type your message as you usually would, but instead of sending it to a mobile number, send the text message to an email address. It’s that simple. Give it a try and email a text message to your inbox. This will set you up for the next step.
2. Receiving email on your phone. The “from” field of the email/text you just sent should look somewhat familiar. Usually it’s your mobile number@carrier.com or something of the sort. I use AT&T so mine is xxxxxxx@txt.att.net. All mobile carriers have slightly different systems (I think Sprint does some kind of routing thing) so this is the easiest way to discover what your phone’s email address is. Once you have this, you can start forwarding important messages to your phone.
3. Using Gmail to forward emails. It’s all well and good that YOU know how to email your phone, but good luck getting your non-tech savvy significant other to start emailing your cell phone. Luckily, the wizards at Google have you covered.
1. Sign in to Gmail and click “Settings” at the top right.
2. Click on the “Filter” tab.
3. Click “Create a new filter”.
4. In the “From” field, type in an email address. This could be your boss, dentist or even Great Aunt Myrtle, bless her heart. All the emails from the address you put in this field will get forwarded to your phone, so make sure this person A) is important, and B) doesn’t often send you spammy chain letters and other useless emails.
5. Click the “Next Step” button.
6. Check the “Forward To” box, and input your cell phone’s email address into the field.
7. Click the “Create Filter” button and you’re done! Now, all email from that special someone will be pushed right to your phone and you don’t have to pay an extra $30 a month for mobile internet.
Just a few notes:
The flexibility of Gmail’s filter features can be incredibly powerful, especially when combined with RSS and SMS technology, so I highly encourage you to play around and see what you can come up with. Leave any tips or exciting combinations in the comments.
As always, follow me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/dpwalsh
