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my long weekend

Many people asked me what my plans were or what I did over the recent Easter long weekend and my response was low-key and non-descript. Unlike my girlfriend Karolina, I'm not one to openly announce personal news to every person I encounter: it's far easier to write news on my blog and post some pretty pictures.

My long weekend consisted of painting and wall-papering our spare room in bright sunny yellows, sky blues (complete with fluffy white clouds) and vibrant candy coloured wallpaper. Normally, I'd make Karolina do all this hard work but as she is four months pregnant...it wasn't advisable.

Being our first child and my first attempt at interior decoration, life is rapidly changing in our little household.

hmmm

What a weird day - it's pouring, teeming rain while clear blue sky reigns in the distance. A rainbow made a brief appearance outside my window and yet apparently the rest of Australia is clear and cloudless!?

Nice day to be at home playing my new ukulele. Hmmm.

I call him/her bluey

We've a healthy population of Australian wildlife in St Peters. Considering our proximity to the city we have plenty of rainbow lorikeets, cockatoos, native minors and flying foxes.

Our population of skinks has also exploded recently, however, the last animal we expected to find in our courtyard was this blue tongue lizard! Last time I'd been this close to a blue tongue was around 20 years ago - growing up in the western suburbs of Sydney.

Needless to say he/she was a feisty one, hissing at our cat as we walked past the backdoor. We put him/her in the backyard and he/she headed straight for the one and only exit point. We're guessing that's the way he/she entered the yard - getting stuck in the courtyard due to a large step.

Good luck Bluey hope to see you again someday.

it's alive!

I've started looking into the Flickr API and how I can use it to make although look sexy and decrease the need for maintaining web pages.

I've taken the easy route with this version of although as I've used the Flickr Badge script to grab image thumbnails. Future versions will use the API as I have found the Badge script to be very limiting for my requirements.

Ultimately, I would like access to the larger image sizes which will effect the way I visually represent although. For a designer who chooses not to code I am finding this to be quite fun and also an interesting challenge.

although skateboards

Whipped these up over the weekend using my existing t-shirt designs. Hope you like them...although skateboards.

my guitar

Here's a new addition to my collection that I recently found in a Newtown pawn shop. I am guessing that it's a 1960's (japanese-made) copy of the Gibson E-335. Despite the cool mimicked ancestory of the guitar, it was the brand that caught my eye. Jason!

Cheap reproductions from the 1960's aren't as bad as you may imagine. In my collection I have the Jason guitar and a Winston bass (copy of the Gibson SG). Both are project guitars and need a bit of work to make them truly playable, however there were some facets I liked when I first played both guitars.

The pickups are cheap and there's not much to them, though the tone they produce is unique and pleasant. The body wood is laminated, though with almost 50 years to dry out, resonance would be improved and the guitar much lighter in weight. The Jason guitar in particular is a semi-hollow bodied guitar with a great acoustic tone that is woody and quite loud. The necks aren't very wide and feature: string trees that apply even pressure to all strings; and my favourite the zero fret. A zero fret ensures the same tone for open and fretted notes.

To make one of these guitars playable you would need to: clean it; resolder all connections; potentially replace some electronics; redress, replace or remove the fretwork; replace the strings; and ideally replace all screws. Be careful when tightening old screws - I once sheared a neck plate screw, leaving half embedded in the guitar. Doh!

I do enjoy tinkering and cheap guitars are an ideal way to learn and practice on. I do also enjoy a guitar branded with my name - maybe my first born should be named Gibson? Which reminds me, my dream acoustic guitar is a Taylor!