today is the once in a hundred year astronomical event called the transit of venus, which won’t happen again until december 2117. to celebrate, the fernbank science center is hosting a a planetarium program, live viewing from the observatory, as well as a live feed nasa of the event from hawaii this evening. sounds fun!

– ryan & gub

update….here is a video of the event:

i heard on npr this morning that it was tony peña’s birthday. he was my brother and i’s favorite baseball player growing up. he wasn’t a big superstar by any means, but he was our guy. we were totally obsessed and had to have all of his baseball cards. it all sprung from my brother having a catchers glove with his signature. it didn’t matter that all gloves came with a players signature on them, my brother’s had tony’s and he was also a catcher, so we were hooked.

eventually my brother and i were able to meet tony at an exhibition game between the cardinals and the orioles in baltimore. after the game we tracked down the cardinals bus where the players were loading. unfortunately, we were told tony was already on the bus. when he heard there were two little boys outside wanting to meet him though, he graciously came out and met us and signed our balls. it was amazing!

in the long run it worked out having a favorite baseball player that wasn’t the biggest star. he was humble enough to still come off a bus to meet a couple of obsessed kids and his baseball cards weren’t the most expensive to collect!

by the way, how amazing was the 1987 topps baseball card design? i think that’s where my woodgrain obsession began! it was also a perfect year to be a tony peña fan. he was traded from the pirates to the cardinals, so he had two cards that year!

– ryan

richard dawson passed away yesterday. he was the last surviving regular from the match game, which we are big fans of. both charles nelson reilly and brett somers died in 2007 and host gene rayburn died in 1999. you may also remember dawson from family feud or hogan’s heroes.

– ryan

i was messing around with qr codes. they take on a warhol feel when you place a bunch together!

– ryan

check out clementine’s super cute school photo!

– ryan & gub

today is our 4th anniversary! wow! last fall we visited ellijay, ga for some fall festivities and took little clementine to the field where we got married. here are some photos from then and now. our friend miguel took our wedding photos, including the great group shot above!

check out a time lapse video of our wedding ceremony!

– ryan & gub

clementine had a blast at her first birthday party! her new swing was quite the hit. we found the handmade swing from an etsy merchant called woodswings! be sure to check out their page for all sorts of great wooden swings.

– ryan & gub

as a birthday gift, our friend miguel took these amazing photos of clementine! the vintage giraffe is one of gubs toys from her childhood.

– ryan & gub

clementine turned one today! how time flies, we can’t believe a year has already passed. clementine enjoyed opening goodies from her aunt amy and also her new rope swing we got from etsy!

– ryan & gub

my favorite of the downtown decatur living walls murals is by atlanta artist jason kofke. it’s above the old decatur village vets next to las brasas and looks like an airplane safety manual. it plays on the fact that airplanes are pretty much the only place you are supposed to look out for yourself before the safety of children.

being on top of a building makes the mural kind of hard to see, especially a clear view of the whole work. you have to walk away and check it out from various locations to see everything, which is a fun element of the piece.

here is another mural by jason we posted a couple of years ago, it’s the one at the bottom with fighter jets. the painting was part of the 2010 living walls conference. be sure to visit his jason’s website to see other projects he’s been a part of.

check out our previous coverage of living walls work by sam parker, freddy sam & ever, doodles, gaia & nanook, gaia & nanook, plf, ltrs, peeve & blief, gaia & nanook, jaz, bruno, niznik & tyndell, greg mike, marco sueño and trek matthews and this great google map of the 2011 living walls murals.

– ryan

living walls: jason kofke

308 e howard avenue
decatur, ga 30030