Europe-Bound

In what could have been a post entitled “Big Ben, kids” (click the image to see the awesomest Europe driving video ever), I am about to embark on a trip to Europe. We’ll be hitting up cities across the continent, from London to Prague. I’m excited to get the opportunity to see old friends, experience the local flavor, food, museums, nightlife, customs, alcoholic beverages, and get to do some exploring.

I was looking at some quotes about travel, and came across this great one by Hilaire Belloc:

We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.

And it’s true, I think that traveling great distances for a while to understand how the rest of the world works is an important part of living life. Well, my life at least.

This is going to be a pretty sweet journey. I’m going to get to eat some incredible Indian food, see a band called Personal Space Invaders, and visit an insane amount of museums in London. I’ll get to check out Dutch Design Week, the Anne Frank House, and the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands. Waiting for my special ladyfriend and me in Prague are places Kafka lived, a pro-level grudge match hockey game between hometown rivals, and incredible music everywhere we’ll turn. Spain will hold wacky Gaudi architecture, a drive down 350 miles of stunning coastline, and an apartment a block from the beach on the 12th floor.

Stay tuned for updates from the road. As usual, keep an eye on my tweets, flickr photos, and here for more.

Photos from my SW Colorado fall colors expedition

A couple weeks ago, photography bad-ass Jen Yu asked me to accompany her and her friend Jason on a fall color photo hunt. As I’m still looking for full-time employment, I jumped at the chance to see how professionals approach an expedition like this. Well, that and Jen is one of the sweetest people I know. I tried my best to soak up as much knowledge as they were offering, but mostly I just tried to watch and mimic what they were doing.

The colors weren’t as amazing as we had hoped -much of the area we scoured was either stripped by wind or hadn’t changed yet. But we made the best of the trip. I had never been to most of the places they took me to, so I loved seeing new country and finding places that I want to go camping next summer. Here are some of the best photos I got from the weekend, but feel free to check out the entirety of the photos I uploaded on Flickr.

Gap’s new logo? Total Crap.

The Gap has a new logo. I think it looks like crap. Would have probably hated to be the creatives in this one. They probably came up with a lot of creative ideas, only to have the client say something like, “we’ve wasted too much time on this already. Let’s just use helvetica and use some idiotic blue gradient box that’s completely unrelated to everything behind the P. Because that definitely says something, that we care about our bottom line and make all our clothes in sweatshops in places like Nicaragua. There’s no possible way that this logo can be offensive to anyone – that is to say, except designers.”

click image for full resolution version

What do you think about it?