the beginnings of an obsession

Most of you know, my thesis project last year was about painted advertisements on walls in St. Louis (In case you are unfamiliar, check it out here stlwalls.com).

Well, now that I work downtown I have gotten into this topic more, and someday I'm going to update that site with research about the specific buildings and add more pictures. I have also become obsessed recently with urban decay and what I think of as the life cycle of a city. Basically, you have buildings from around 1900 to 1930 that have been used by several different businesses, services, or factorys over the years that have come and gone. These buildings usually have something beautiful about them - architectural details which you don't see in buildings today. However they have decayed to the point where they either need to be torn down or renovated. Doing either of those completes the life cycle of the building because it is either being torn down and then a new building goes up in its place, or it is renovated (or basically gutted to a brick shell and rebuilt) which also makes it mostly a new building.

So why am I going on and on about this? Well, my new obsession (in addition to the wall paintings) is this urban decay - it's ugly but it's beautiful idea.

Here are some websites you can check out to help you figure out what I'm talking about:

• Irrational Ecstasy Blog
• Ecology of Absence Blog
• St. Louis City Hospital: A History
• Built St. Louis (I love this site!)

Venezuelans pose nude in public for art

Yes, you read it right. Straight from cnn.com, 1,500 Venezuelans posed naked on a main city street for American photographer Spencer Tunick. Interesting huh? How do you get a huge number of people to shed their clothes and pose naked for your artwork? Aparently he's been arrested in the United States at least a couple times trying to shoot such photography in public here.

So I had to visit Spencer Tunick's website to find out more, and what did I find? The first link on the website is "sign up to participate" where you give your name, email, city, state, sex, age and skin tone. I guess he contacts you when he's in your area...

The human body is a beautiful thing - the curves and shapes of the body. If you dare, check out the pictures on his website. What do you think. They are interesting, and not pornographic. It is interesting how he places people over the landscape so the nude figures blend into the rolling hills of the landscape and overlaps people to create curves.

Time never stops.

Lately I've been thinking about how fast time has been going. When you're a kid, it seems like forever from the beginning of the school year to the end. Nine whole months. Tom and I have been engaged for nine months now, and it feels like we just got engaged yesterday.

It's funny how time works. Tomorrow I'm spending the afternoon/evening with some family friends that I haven't seen since July 2003. Two and a half years, and I've finally found time to get together with them again. Where does the time go? The weeks have been flying by. I mean to reply to an email and before I know it, it's been 2 or 3 months and I still haven't talked to the person. Another six months pass and I don't even know where the person lives anymore. Another year and it's like we never even met.

Hold on to good friends. It seems that you have to work to stay together sometimes.

I just want to publicly announce...

Just some random things on my mind at the moment:

1. I finally took down the christmas lights off the front of the house yesterday afternoon. We are no longer "that" house in the neighborhood.
2. I have watched 10 episodes of the Gilmore Girls in the last 3 days.
   
3. I hate "that time of the month."
4. Weekends are way too short.
   
5. Wedding planning sucks...it's amazing that anyone actually gets married what with all the planning, marriage prep classes, bridesmaid disasters and money spent.

Gilmore Girls

For good or for bad, I have recently become addicted to the Gilmore Girls...all thanks to Melissa. She is obsessed with the Gilmore Girls (about as much as I am obsessed with 7th Heaven) and loaned me the first season to watch.

Well, after holding on the first season dvd set for at least three months I started watching them last week, and now, after the first 6 episodes, I find myself wanting to watch more and wanting to find out what happens with Rory and Dean!!! The best part is that there are 5 more seasons so I'll be watching for awhile.

I hate when my favorite television shows end...even tho shows generally end when they are so bad that it's really a waste of time watching them, but still, I really do miss them once they are over. Just a sampling of shows that I have been obsessed with over the years (and have seen nearly every episode of) Full House, Boy Meets World, Home Improvement, and now Seventh Heaven is ending at the end of this season.

Wedding Shoes

So I purchased the shoes that I am going to wear for the wedding this weekend...skechers!

I Love Toys!

VH1 is running a new show in it's highly popular "I Love" series. This time it's "I Love Toys" and they are counting the top 100 toys of all time. Last night they showed numbers 100-81, including such favorites as Spirograph (#97), Chutes & Ladders (#95), My Little Pony (#85) and the Little Golden Books (#82). I decided to make a list of my top 20 favorite toys (I have not included toys that I love now but did not have as a child such as a nintendo, care bears...)

1. Barbie
2. Wooden Blocks
3. My Little Pony
   
4. Baby Dolls
5. Pound Puppies
6. Baby-Sitters Club Books
7. Sweet Valley Twins Books
8. Lite Brite
9. Crayons
10. Candy Land
    
11. Chutes & Ladders
12. Legos
13. Teddy Bear
14. Etch-A-Sketch
    
15. Spirograph
    
16. Little Golden Books
    
17. Play Dough
    
18. Jump Rope
    
19. View Master
20. Goosebumps books by RL Stine

Guitar Hero

I have discovered a new favorite video game...GUITAR HERO for the Playstation 2. It is the same idea as Dance Dance Revolution and Donkey Konga. Find out more on the official website.

Picture of the Day

I've decided to institute a new feature on my blog: Picture of the day!

The idea is that I post an interesting, weird, cute etc. picture that I've taken and you comment on it. Sound fun? So here goes!

This picture is the mysterious "Women" door. The door is on the north side of the Drury Inn building on Broadway by the Ed Jones dome. This building was built in the 1920s (I think) and it has a parking garage on 3 floors and 3 or so floors of hotel above that. Currently this door (which is not accessable from the outside) goes to a stairwell that leads from the parking garage to the street level. What was this door originally for? There's no "men" door on the building. The only other engraved writing on the building is above the enterance and exit to the parking garage and the basement enterance to the basement parking garage. So if you have any ideas about what this door might have been for, please let me know!

Lite Brite!

Isn't light brite the coolest toy ever? I made the above image on the light brite widget on my mac at work. It's so much fun!!! My favorite part is doing the paper patterns that you would put over the light bright and then punch thru the paper kind of like color by number.

Good Idea? Bad Idea?

So, it's been about a week since the big announcement came that John Steffen of Pyramid Construction is purchasing the St. Louis Centre and the attached One City Centre office building and has the old Dillards building next door under contract. The plans for these buildings sound great in theory. Renovations to begin this summer and will include 120 luxury condos with a center open air atrium with swimming pool. The ground floor will hold 6-12 restaurants and stores, with Borders and Whole Foods as prospective tenants. The best part is that the building will look completely different. The ugly green and white skin on the exterior will be gone as well as that AWFUL skybridge over Washington Ave. Plans for the Dillards building have not yet been released but Steffen was quoted saying that it is best suited for "mixed use."

With all that said, the question is whether St. Louis can support additional loft spaces. I am very excited about the renovation of historic buildings in downtown St. Louis, however I don't think that St. Louis has the market to keep all of these loft spaces full. I'd rather them do something to it then let it sit and rot even more. What do you think...good idea to build lofts or bad idea to spend the money on a questionable market?

E-mail Forwards

So we've all sent them - e-mail forwards. There are several categories of forwarded emails:

• Nice thoughts we wish to pass on to friends to make them smile
• Jokes meant to make friends laugh
• Shocking stories and photos, warnings and those too-good-to-be-true offers

I got three forwards today, all three which turned out to be false. PLEASE if you are going to spend the time to forward a message to a friend, do a little research first to find out whether or not it's true. It only takes a couple minutes. There are many web sites out there that focus on urban legands, just type the subject matter of the email into google and you're bound to get several sites telling you whether it is true or false and why.

So here goes...three false email forwards that I received today:

1. The 90# Telephone Scam
2. Photographs of a Snake found inside a PC
   
3. 1954 Home Computer

Wedding Tuxes

Here is a sneak preview of the tuxes that we picked out for the wedding! They are from Jim's Formal Wear, rented through Bridal Connections in Florissant. Click on the image for a bigger view! The red vests match the bridesmaid dresses perfectly! The groom, fathers and usher will wear the same tux with different vest and tie colors.

Nohari Window

This one is basically the same idea as the last post, only this time you choose from a list of adjectives describing your failings. Kinda scary to think about isn't it...seeing what your friends think your failings are. Be honest and don't worry, I won't get mad at you!

http://kevan.org/nohari?name=froggie

Johari Window

Thanks Merkelet for this URL.

This is a very interesting little tool. Basically it has a list of words and you choose the 6 that describe me the most. I've also chosen 6 and so once you've chosen 6 and submitted them, it shows you which words we picked the same and which we chose differently.

http://kevan.org/johari?name=froggiegirl

Photographing the Centre

The sign above is displayed inside the St. Louis Centre Mall in downtown St. Louis. Actually it's displayed in multiple places, at least 5 or 6. And as most people know, the St. Louis Centre is a dead mall. Walgreens, Famous Barr, T Mobile, and Sbarro Pizza are the only recognizable store names left doing business, with a handful of other random shops attempting to sell their costume jewelry and hip clothing to lunchtime mall walkers and unsuspecting convention attendees. In the four floors of retail space, maybe 8 or so of these shops exist.

Those of you who read Gimlet's blog are aware of the photography situation at the downtown St. Louis Centre Mall. The situation being that it is against the centre's rules to photograph inside the mall without written permission from the management. Well, being ever up to a challenge, I had to go attempt to photograph the inside of the centre myself.

During lunch a couple days ago a co-worker and I ventured into the mall. We took quite a few pictures and did not get stopped or spoken to by anyone. Here is just a sampling of what the St. Louis centre has to offer (click to enlarge).


As you can see, the St. Louis Centre is really "Downtown Shopping at it's Best!"

You've Got To Check This Out!

You've got to check out this website: The Sith Sense

It's a campaign that Burger King launched whenever they were doing the whole dark vader thing a few months back. (a co-worker showed me this site at work today) You challenge vader by thinking of an object, animal, vegetable, mineral or unknown, and he asks you questions. By the end he's figured out what you were thinking of! It's crazy, so far he's guesssed "chinchilla" and "umbrella" pretty easily. "Christmas Lights" took him 26 questions to guess. Can you stump him?

And in case you're wondering what the heck the guy dressed as a chicken is that comes in sometimes at the end of the scene, check out the Subservient Chicken, a BK online promotion from a couple years ago.

Remember the truth. It's all that matters.

I think that that quote, "Remember the truth. It's all that matters." is a very powerful one. It's even in James Frey's book, "A Million Little Pieces" that has recently gone under fire by the media. In case you haven't heard, it's under fire because it is billed as a memoir, but the most important parts of the book were fabricated. The most important parts of the book, the parts that leave the reader speechless, are made up, lies!

This story doesn't really have anything to do with Oprah. I mean it does, because the book got popular because of her endorsement, but the fact that the book is based on lies is James Frey's fault and his alone.

I bought "A Million Little Pieces" as an impulse purchase. I was at the bookstore, looking for new and interesting things to read, and came across a pile by the check out of this book. I saw that it had Oprah's 'seal of approval' on it (I've read and enjoyed many books that Oprah has recommended), read the back and decided to buy the book. I read the book and thought it was very well written, and was shocked that it was a true story. Now, I doubted small portions of the book while I was reading, but had no reason to think that it was a lie.

Now on to the specifics. If you haven' t read the book and plan to, you should probably stop reading this post right now. You've been warned...

First, not too far into the book, just after James has arrived at the treatment center, he is taken to the dentist to have his front four teeth repaired. The dentist caps the two to the sides of the front ones, but has to do a root canal on the front two teeth, but says he can't use novocain. James writes for several pages the pain and agony of having these two root canals. After he makes it through the root canals as a reader you think, wow, this man has just had two root canals with no novocain, he can do anything! It sets the stage for cheering him on through his small victories throughout the book. Well here's the truth: James now doubts that he had the root canals without novocain. In his interview with Oprah, when asked whether he had novocain or not at the dentist he replies, "I honestly have no idea."

So, as if the dentist lie wasn't bad enough, here's the real kicker. Throughout the book James makes a friendship with a girl named Lily. She is also in treatment, and the two of them help each other through their recovery, and plan to continue to see each other after they are released from the center. After leaving the treatment center, James writes that he must spend three months in jail, then after his jail term, James promises to go find Lily, who plans a stay at a halfway house in Chicago after her release from the center. James finishes the memoir telling us these plans, then includes a page at the back of the book giving us a glimpse of the future. He lists each of the people/friends/enemies he encountered at the treatment center, and what happened to them after being released. Many of them fell back into their old habits of addiction and alcoholism. Some ended up being killed, some died, and just a few actually recovered and are living productive lives. Then there's Lily. James tells us that Lily hung herself just hours before he was released from jail and before he could get to her.

The truth? Not really. James was only in jail for a few hours, not three months (just a minor detail there, huh?) and while Lily still committed suicide, she cut her wrists, and did not hang herself. The tragedy is still there, Lily died, but why change that detail of how she died? What's the big deal James? And, if James was only in jail for a few hours, what was he doing in the time between being released from jail and going to meet Lily? Here's his answer to that, "I went through Ohio. I was there briefly, [then] I went down to North Carolina where I was living at the time. And I was closing up my life there." What the hell does that mean?!

I have just a few final comments. First, when going to publishers, James first tried to get the book published as a novel. No publisher would take the book. Then he tried the same manuscript as a memoir, and Doubleday & Anchor Books (a division of random house) agreed to publish the book. Second, throughout the interview James refers to the people in the book as "characters." To me, "characters" sounds like a made up person.

James, I think you are a dishonest and deceitful person. I think there is a lot of good in this book, it's an encouraging story of going thru hell and coming out of it a better person. But, I don't know if James is a better person now. Maybe a richer person, but not a better person.

For a full transcript of the Oprah interview with James Frey from Thursday, January 26, click here.

Dish Network vs. Lifetime

So Dish Network replaced Lifetime and the Lifetime Movie Network with other women's tv channels today. I guess this means the negotioations are at a standstill. All I have to say is that it doesn't matter who is wrong, just get my freaking Lifetime back on tv!

In honor of the new year...

We get a lot of forwarded email from friends throughout the year, and sometimes they just need to be passed on. In honor of the new year, read the below and think about it.

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schultz, the creator of the "Peanuts" comic strip.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winner for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Acheivements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones that care.

Happy New Year (Resolutions)!

Happy New Year! I can't believe that it is already 2006! The past year went by so fast!

First, a recap of 2005 (in no particular order):

• Graudated from UMSL with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design
• Traveled 4,000 miles from St. Louis to San Diego and Back (the most awesome trip ever!)
• Got ENGAGED on said trip
• Got an awesome job at infuz

I think it'll be hard to top 2005 but here are my resolutions to start 2006 off right.

• Work out and eat healthy (so that the wedding dress still fits when I wear it on June 3, 2006 - just 6 and 2 days away!) I plan to work out at least once a week after work - hopfully with JBear a lot cause it's much more fun with a friend. Of course there's other ways to workout besides just the gym once it gets warm - biking and walking around the neighborhood in the evenings.
  
• Finish work on the house (at least finish both bathrooms, and the three bedrooms - including new paint, flooring and baseboard/crown molding) and some work on the basement to create a workout room for Gimlet.
• Get the yard looking nice. Right now there's lots of patches with no grass, so in the spring I'm going to do some seeding in those areas. The backyard also needs some work. We might plant a garden in that space that has been mostly full of weeds the past 2 years, and also clean out some of that back area that just collects water.
• Spend more time with Tom doing fun stuff together as opposed to sitting in the bedroom watching chinchillas destroy our belongings...
• And probably more things...I'll add them as I think of them!
  

Fancy Parking

Do you fancy park? Do you know what fancy parking is? I've just been enlightened by this website: fancyparking.com. Aparently fancy parking is when you park in a parking spot with the front of your car facing out instead of the back. Basically backing into a spot or doing a pull-thru (my personal favorite way to park). The website also shows you other ways to achieve a fancy parking job. Check it out - it'll at least give you a laugh!

Christmas

Christmas was quite enjoyable this year. But to understand you have to know that every year my entire life my family would travel to Chicago and Peoria to see my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins for Christmas. This normally meant driving 8 hours from Columbia, MO to Chicago, in the cold December weather, while squished into the back seat of a small compact car and 2 other siblings. Only once in my life did I not travel for Christmas - when I was 7, my little brother was born 9 days before Christmas so we did not travel.

Anyway, this year Tom and I opted for a relaxing Christmas. We had dinner and opened presents with Tom's parents and grandma on Christmas Eve (and opened lots of cool presents including warm, fuzzy pajamas, vertical horizon cd, gift certificate for target, and a new alarm clock (the lovely chinchillas chewed up the cord of my old one). The chinchillas got some chew treats/toys. After a quiet and relaxing evening Tom and I attended midnight mass at St. Joeseph in Manchester church, and then decided to go ahead and open our presents to each other at 1:30 am on Christmas morning when we got home. From Tom and the chinchillas I got the Rob Thomas cd, 101.1 the river cd, and the Trans-siberian Orchestra cd, Mario Party 7 for gamecube, the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie, the Simpsons season 6, and an adopted polar bear from the St. Louis Zoo (well the Polar Bear has to stay at the zoo...but I'm his adopted mother).

And there's still more to come...this weekend we are visiting my family in Columbia to exchange gifts with them!

What's in YOUR stocking?

What's in YOUR stocking?

Dusty Fipsy

Dusty Fipsy!

snow snow snow

Well we got thru the first snow of the year. Snow used to be fun when we got out of school for it, and could just go outside and build a snowman and go sledding. We didn't have to worry about driving 45 minutes to work in the snow, dodging bad drivers, or shoveling the driveway. Basically I hate winter, snow, ice, cold....

On another note, Gimlet and I decorated our house for Christmas yesterday. :)

Life Teen apparently founded to "get teens"

Myself like many of my friends participated in Life Teen at the Catholic church when we were in high school. Life Teen was founded by Monsignor Dale Fushek in Arizona. The Mission of Life Teen reads: "LIFE TEEN is an international Catholic ministry that serves the Church and leads all teens closer to Christ by providing resources and training that encourage vibrant Eucharistic celebrations and opportunities for teens to grow in their faith." (from lifeteen.org)

However it has recently hit the new media that the founder of Life Teen, Fr. Fushek who is credited with numerous good things for the church - bringing America's young Catholics back to the church, and basically running the pope's youth rally visits to Tempe in 1987 and to St. Louis in 1999, also molested and abused boys who attended Life Teen at his church.

With all the boys who have come forward, there is reported to be a "pattern of recruitment and seduction of teenage boys spanning at least a decade." (from phoenixnewtimes.com)

This is shocking seeing as Life Teen has become such a national program. How many other teenagers have been abused at other parishes relating to Life Teen? I know there are many good priests out there who run parishes, but it is just shocking to realize how many "bad" priests were hidden and moved around the country. Sad too.

Here is the article about the abuse allegations on the founder of Life Teen: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1334726

It's not Christmas Yet Folks!

It's not Christmas yet. It's not even the Christmas season yet. Advent doesn't start until next Sunday. Thanksgiving isn't for 3 more days, and yet, as we drove thru our subdivision this evening there were several houses with Christmas lights up already. One business north of hwy 40 between 270 and Woods Mill had lights up reading "Christ the Savior is Born". Excuse me, but I believe that Christ wasn't born until the 25 of December, and it's not even the 25 of November yet.

The Christmas season is a special time of year, but part of what makes it special is that it only happens for a short while each year. If we had Christmas lights up all year long we wouldn't notice them, they wouldn't mean anything to us.

(As a side note, I don't have any problem with people putting up their outdoor lights when it's a nice weekend, just don't turn them on until at least Thanksgiving!)

PETSMART logo

Petsmart changed their logo recently. (The new logo is on the top, the old logo is on the bottom) I just noticed the new logo last night when I got their latest ad out of the mailbox. I don't like the new logo. I think the old logo was neat because the ball was bouncing on the "s" and it makes it seem like it says "Pets Mart" or "Pet Smart". The new logo still does that but the ball isn't interacting with the words as much as it used to. It seems to be acting as an ' now. They changed the shape of the letter forms as well and also changed the colors obviously and even changed the shape of the little white highlight on the ball.

So what do you non-designers (and designers too) think of this new logo. I'm giving it a thumbs down!

Purina Treats

Check out the Purina Treats website! There's a website for each of the Purina Treats brands - Whisker Lickins', Aquari-yums, Beggin', T-Bonz, Busy Bone, Chew-rific, Chew-eez and Appawtizers - and each website has info about that particular brand (obviously) and then it also has horoscopes for cats and dogs, and screensavers and computer desktop wallpapers that you can download (I made those so make sure to check them out!)