Daily Dunkle

An Assortment of Updates

2010-09-26T12:53:00.000-07:00

First of all, I apologize for not posting regularly for the last few months. I just got out of the habit!

Let's see if I can recount important things that have happened during the last few months:

I have been working full time at Fresh Tilled Soil, and really loving it!! I've learned a lot and consider myself very lucky to be working with a pretty cool group of people in a pretty cool office right on the Charles River. Here's an aerial shot of the Watch Factory where I work:

Back in March, Matthew's mom came to visit! She was our first guest to try out our Ikea futon, and I think she approved! We took a trip into Boston and did a cool ferry tour through Boston harbor. It must've been one of the first warm weekends of the season... It seems strange to be wearing short sleeves in March up here!

In April, Matthew and I drove out to Rhinebeck, New York for his Aunt Chris' surprise birthday party. It was a lot of fun. The surprise party was at a country club right over the Hudson River:

Matthew and I tore up the dance floor with some sweet moves we've been working on:

Chris works for the Catskills Animal Sanctuary and the day after the surprise party, we got to go on a tour there. They accept farm animals only, and a lot of the animals are free-roaming and hang out in inter-species packs - It was really funny. Ducks, turkeys, rams and pigs were all hanging out, best friends NMW. Here's the biggest pig I've ever seen:

And a few other pictures from the trip:

In June, my Aunt Nancy and my sister Audrey came to visit! And we went on many adventures - The first one was to New York City where we saw Wicked on Broadway and ate some delicious authentic New York pizza and bagels. And we discovered Pretzel M&Ms. Also, the World Cup started while they were here! We caught as many games as possible. Here we are in Times Square - Don't be fooled about what time it is by the amount of light... It was midnight! The city really doesn't sleep.

Here's Audrey conquering Central Park:

After our adventure to the big city, we had another adventure but of the exact opposite nature - We went camping in Martha's Vineyard! It was a blast. It wasn't 100% authentic camping because we slept in a cabin with beds, but we made a fire every day! And we went to the beach where Jaws was filmed, and we ate some excellent fresh seafood. I think it's safe to say that now that Nan has an iPhone, she has become Net Girl #2 - She was posting pictures on Facebook throughout the entire trip, so you may have seen some of these before!

Audrey and I worked on perfecting the s'more - The graham cracker in this picture is a little charred because she let it sit over the fire for a few minutes to melt the chocolate.

Nan's chillin' by the fire:

Weenie roast! Audrey wanted to stick the hotdogs on horizontally like in the cartoons.

Fast-forward a few months to September... Mom and Dad came to visit! We managed to go to more sporting events in one day than Matthew and I have been to the whole time we've been in Massachusetts! First we went to the Red Sox game:

Somehow despite the Red Sox gear, the people sitting in front of us pegged us as out-of-towners. I'll do some research on how to blend in better for next time. The Sox lost 3-1 - oh well.

Then that night we went to a New England Revolution game! And we all got free t-shirts too. That was a lot of fun. The Revs made an awesome comeback and wound up winning 3-1! Pretty cool.

There's a park near our apartment in Waltham that used to be a ski area, and there are some nice walking trails and overlooks - We walked up to the top and if you look closely you can see the Boston skyline:

The next day, we drove up to a cool little town on the North Shore called Newburyport and went apple picking! We went to the same farm last fall with some of my friends from school. The weekend we went was one of the last ones for peach-picking season, so we were able to scavenge a few peaches from the trees before they were picked bare. There was some kind of festival going on in Newburyport that day too so we got to hear some live music by the harbor. It was a good day!

Here's Dad getting ready to take a picture from his phone:

When we got back from Newburyport, Mom showed me how to make peach preserves and can them! From the tree to the jar in less than 8 hours... Can't beat that!

I attempted my first batch of apple butter with the apples we got from the farm. I expected it to make a bunch of jars - but it only made two! It's pretty tasty though!

Then on September 7, Matthew began his first semester at Berklee! Here is his traditional first day of school photo:

He's been going non-stop since that day! He's taking all kinds of cool-sounding classes. The very first fellow student that he met at Berklee? Guess what his name is -- Miles Davis. Ha! Matthew is an excellent student and has been practicing a ton. I'm very excited for his first concert, whenever that will be.

A major accomplishment of mine in the last few weeks: I almost did a whole pull-up! That sounds pretty lame, but trust me if you could see me do it you'd be impressed. Maybe I'll get Matthew to videotape me doing it - you'll be inspired.

We also celebrated our 2-year wedding anniversary. WOW! Two years already. Time flies!! We had a great spring and summer, and it was awesome seeing our family who we love and miss. Everyone is always welcome to come visit (the futon has been broken in and approved of by multiple sources now!) - So please visit! I'll try and make sure it's not 100 years until the next blog post.

2010-09-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

Waltham Aparthment - The Grand Tour!

2010-03-15T05:43:00.000-07:00

New Diggs

2010-01-23T20:15:00.000-08:00

We visited our new apartment today. Delivered some non-essential belongings and got to meet our new neighbors Megan and Amanda who live on the first floor. It was a beautiful sunny day and the apartment was glowing. This first picture is the living room which has a window that looks out through the large tree in the front "yard" and out onto the main street. On the left there are some french doors which open up to the "office".

Here you can see the ceiling fan, and that shadow in the upper left corner almost makes you think that we have a vaulted ceiling but it is purely an illusion.
Here we are in the same room just backed up a little and facing right. That fireplace is only decorative.....oh shoot. But the window is real.
This is the view you would have if you just came up the stairs and into our apartment and looked right. Through the doorway on the left is the formal dining room which then leads to the kitchen. On the right is the second bedroom which we think may become my music "studio".
This is the second bedroom once again. Through that door is the hallway. In that hallway you have a door to the kitchen on the left, a door to the bathroom on the right, and a linen closet all of which cannot be seen in this picture. Past the hallway you can see the doorway to the Master bedroom.

So this is the hallway mentioned before where now you can see the bathroom and the "studio" from a different angle. Notice the closet and one of the two windows.
Great, simple bathroom.
The master bedroom. You can see two of the three windows and the door to the closet.
Here are two shots of the formal dining room. Love these windows.

Here is the entrance to the kitchen from the formal dining room. The dishwasher on the left. Straight ahead is the door to the patio and the basement.
More kitchen.
Even more kitchen. Now you can see the door on the right which would lead back into the formal dining room. On the left is the doorway which would lead in the hallway for the bathroom.

Gosh that's a big kitchen. LOL.

This is the "office". The door on the right leads to the stairs. In the office there is a doorway which opens to stairs that lead up to the attic.
The attic is not insulated, not very fancy, but easy to access and spacious.

More to come as we continue the moving process. Hope you enjoyed your virtual tour.

Christmas Past

2010-01-05T13:54:00.000-08:00

In no specific order............

My second time skiing went better than the first time. Still fell down a few times. Was a little over dressed. I was toasty warm after about an hour. that is better than being underdressed though.
Bye bye GPS. Lesson learned.

Pomp pomp pomp and circumstance. What a weird name for a song.

Maybe Emily wasn't too excited about this movie.

Boston, Winter, Cold, Sisters!

Our tree is sort of balding.

But well lit.

Thanksgiving in Raleigh, NC

2009-12-05T16:45:00.000-08:00

Berklee Audition

2009-12-05T16:34:00.001-08:00

Website!!!

2009-11-13T13:53:00.000-08:00

Hello, this is Emily. Just wanted to announce that my website is officially up and running!

www.emilydunkle.com

Please take a look! And pass it along to friends and family, or anyone that may be interested!

Birthday Girl

2009-11-07T18:29:00.001-08:00

Goofy birthday girl.

In Boston, on a pedestrian adventure on Halloween.

Fall Colors.

Lots o' leaves.

Stray Kitty likes Tuna.

Gryffindor Berries!

Who shook the snow globe?

2009-10-18T14:09:00.000-07:00

Not my idea of October!

Is this really happening?

Who is responsible for this?

Green leaves....white snow...?

Oh brother!

I want my money back!
Not what the doctor ordered.

Images from better, less snowy times.

More Newburyport.

My new favorite place to worship.

A beautiful restoration in Acton, MA.

I turned another year older....so it must be....October!

2009-10-12T17:03:00.000-07:00

Eileen and Ed got married and we had a great time with the family in Pennsylvania just one week ago. It was a beautiful day and I thought the bubbles were really cool.

I gave myself my seasonal haircut. Low maintenance.

Emily and I went to Newburyport to pick apples with some of her friends from CDIA. All those apples had Emily feeling pretty inspired as she spent the day as a homemaker. She had Columbus Day off from school, but I had to go to work anyway.

Venturing onto the Web

2009-09-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

Well it's been several weeks now since I started the Web Design portion of my program. It's so different, and it's been a challenge! The project that I'm showing now is one where we had to choose a poorly designed website and redesign it. I chose the site of Erikson's Ice Cream, which is an ice cream stand about a mile from our house in Maynard, and the ice cream is SO good! But the website is not. If you would like to visit it, click here.

Here's a picture of what their homepage looks like (you can click on each picture to view it bigger):

And here is my re-design:

Here is what their "Flavors" page looks like:

And here is my re-design:

Here is what their "Merchandise" page looks like:

And here is my re-design:

Their website actually has about 30 pages, and I re-did all of them, but that's way too many to post on here! They also didn't really have a logo or identity so I created one from what one of the tshirts looked like. I also designed a few different tshirts and did a bunch of illustrations for all of their different flavors - about 45 total! We haven't tried them all yet, though. Since I first tasted Cake Batter, that's what I've stuck with. It's gooood.

Anyway, so that's some of my web work so far! I haven't yet contacted Erikson's to tell them that I think their website is ugly, and that they should use my version.. But maybe I will!

A Great Weekend

2009-09-20T15:06:00.000-07:00

What an awesome weekend it has been!!! On Friday, we went into Boston to see one of my best friends Laura Musten, who is on tour with a band called Owl City. Here is some video that I found on youtube - Whoever made this video must have stood right around where Matthew and I were standing, because it's about the same view we had. It doesn't really show Laura until the end of the video when her sweet violin part comes in.

Here are some more photos from the night:

These two below are of the crowd - It was PACKED and they all knew all the lyrics!

And these next two aren't so good, but you can see Laura onstage! She's a rockstar!!

So that was so much fun!!! We hung out with Laura some more right after they finished until all of their equipment was packed and they took off on the road again for Westchester, PA! It was already midnight and they were going to drive a few hours before crashing for the night. Whew!

There isn't much to speak of for Saturday, other than the giant grocery trip we made and spent so much and got a ton of stuff. But we forgot bread. And laundry detergent.

Then today, I ran a 3.5 mile race with three of my friends from class! It was right in Maynard and benefits the Boys and Girls Club here. The three girls and I have been running during our lunch break three or four times a week for about 3 months now, so it was about time for a race!

Here is Jackie and me getting our numbers on:

The two guys on the left are Lara's and Melissa's husbands - They brought their dogs! I was so excited. I'm not sure if you can see the dogs very well, but the one on the left is a Bernese mountain dog puppy named Anna, and the one on the right is a 3-legged Yorkie named Dwight. They became fast friends. And they didn't soil our carpet when they came over later. Good dogs.

Here I am, very intense. Melissa and Jackie are still working on their numbers.

Here are the four of us! I guess I've never gotten the memo about exercise clothes not having to be soccer shirts and shorts. From the left it's Lara, Jackie, Melissa, and me!

Here we are in the crowd, getting ready to start. There weren't TOO many people running - maybe 200. So we started dangerously close to the starting line and then within about 5 minutes were almost dead last. In this photo, none of us are looking but #187 is grinnin!

Here we are smiling in the background, and #63 looks pretty pumped up!

And, we're off! It didn't really hit me that we were running a race until he fired that pop gun.

Can you find us in this picture?

40 minutes later...

We finished! Not last! The person that won finished in 16:58! ...!!! Wow! Apparently he was a triathlete in the Beijing Olympics. But we had a lot of fun! Maynard has a lot more hills than the path we run regularly in Waltham, so it was a little more of a challenge, but it was great! Everyone came over afterwards and Matthew made smoothies and I'd made blueberry muffins yesterday, so we all hung out for a little while till everybody parted ways!

And Matthew just finished making a pot roast for dinner (oh yeah!) - An excellent finish to an excellent weekend.

Anniversary Weekend/New Toys!

2009-09-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos of new arrivals to our house this weekend: A couch, a TV, and a cake!! Ha, we're SET to be unproductive.

Thanks Mom and Dad for sending the cake!!! Despite its appearance, there was nothing the Postal Service could do to jostle it's delicious taste.

Here's me after vaccuming. It was raining while the couch was being delivered.

Here's Matthew, lounging on our new masterpiece. We were also enjoying our cake at that moment. The couch was actually manufactured in Star, North Carolina, which is apparently the geographical center of the state.

Here's a view with the new TV.

And here is our cake!!!!

YUM! It's what we had for lunch today. Thanks again for sending it! It's been a wonderful year... I can't believe it's been a year already! We look forward to many more.

2009-08-26T18:50:00.000-07:00

I recently bought a small drumset and am very happy with my home studio. Stay tuned as I will have some new tracks availible shortly. For a sample of my music from the recent past please vistit my Myspace page. www.myspace.com/dunkletrumpet

This is a bass that I made by altering an old arch-top guitar. It gets a sound somewhere in between an electric bass and an upright acoustic bass. The pick-up was installed by luthier Lee Lucas of Raleigh, NC.

Green Means Go: One Pedestrian's Suggestion for a Greener Tomorrow

2009-08-17T15:32:00.000-07:00

Today I have no pictures or anecdotes to share. Just a few thoughts on traffic. It is something that I am faced with everyday. Usually from the perspective of a pedestrian. You may know that I walk to work. I am lucky to have only a 15 minute walk to work. Imagine...no car payment......no insurance premiums.....no fuel cost (other than a hearty breakfast). But this is not about me. This is about the people who do drive and the way they react to pedestrians.

I don't know what motivates them, but there is an ever growing number of drivers who yield to pedestrians. Maybe they feel it is better to be safe than sorry and in that respect I completely understand. Maybe they believe that the law dictates that the pedestrians have the right away, and in some areas this may be the case. Regardless of what causes a person behind the wheel of a moving vehicle to surrender their velocity to people not in a vehicle we need to evaluate the priorities at hand.

In a nutshell, there is a small amount of fuel (and I don't mean Wheaties) wasted when a car slows down, comes to a complete stop, idles for twenty seconds, accelerates and returns to it's previous speed. But when you multiply this by the number of times this happens in a given day and then multiply that by the number of days in a year or ten years we begin to see why GREEN means GO. That is right. Everyone is talking about green energy these days and I think that one of the simplest things we can do is to just keep moving. As a pedestrian, I am more than willing to sacrifice a few minutes of my day knowing that I am helping reduce the amount of pollutants released into the air. Of course, that doesn't give you, as a licensed driver the right to mow down middle schoolers on your way back to work after your lunch meeting at the Cracker Barrel. It just means that if you are the only car, or one of three cars on an otherwise empty street and you see one or two people looking at you and waiting to see if you are going to stop and let them cross the road.......just keep driving!

Unfortunately this wouldn't be a job creating policy, or a money making policy so don't expect to see it on a ballot somewhere, but you haver the power to decide. It also creates a huge liablity and that is why I am only suggesting this as a case by case basis. The next time you are out there getting groceries or stopping at Pet Smart, if the pedestrians are jumping out into the street, then give them the right of way. Otherwise, let them watch you drive past em'.

Stay tuned for my next blog where I will attempt to convince you to wear your underwear more than once before washing it. Just kidding.

Matthew

Boston Life Magazine

2009-07-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

This week's project was to design the concept and layout for a 24-page magazine. I chose a generic magazine that doesn't actually exist, called "Boston Life" and made it "The Green Issue." We had to include several pages of advertisements created from last week's project which was a travel brochure (I haven't posted that yet).

(P.S. I know I haven't been posting as much work from school lately - it's not for lack of enthusiasm!! I love what I'm doing and come home excited almost every day about our projects. The projects are getting longer and are taking more time to complete, that's all!)

So we were to include our own travel ad on the inside cover, and then throughout the magazine use 5 or 6 other students' brochures to supplement our own. So you'll see some of my classmates' work too! Here we go! I'll give you a few notes along the way.

Above and on the left was my travel ad... Two weeks ago, the assignment was to create a six page travel brochure featuring six different festivals. Then this week for the magazine, we created a one-page advertisement based on the brochure.

See who the editor is? Ha! Most of the text is dummy placeholder text in Latin, so don't strain too hard to read it. I did make up the titles and subtitles for the articles, and some of the captions and shorter text bits.

I also used some of my own photography in this project... Such as on the next few pages!

I tried really hard in this project to challenge myself to delve into the "white space" concept. My natural tendency is to fill it all up, but I think with so much text in a magazine, the white space works well.

Above on the right is where my classmates' travel ads start. It's crazy how different the results are when you give different people the same assignment!

Starting with the article below, we're back to my work!

This last page is an ad I made for the back cover. THE END!

It's About Time... Again!

2009-07-17T16:23:00.000-07:00

So these blog postings are getting farther and farther apart... I'm sorry!! The task seems more daunting when there are lots of things to post. To start on the catching-up, here are photos from our trip to Texas! We had a great time. Ate lots of barbecue and Mexican food - two things at the top of our priority list.

This photo is not of Texas - you may be able to tell because the color green doesn't really exist there, it's so dry. Whereas in Massachusetts, all we have known is rain for the last few months. This is our drawer-garden right before we left. I was mad because I figured the flowers would bloom and then fall off and die all before we returned. As you can see, the flowers (and the drawers) are rotting from all the rain.

Yeeehaw, we landed! This is right after we picked up our baggage in Austin and met Aunt Alice, Aunt Nancy and Jenny. They gave us some sweet Texan gifts and Matthew's initiation to the Lone Star State has officially begun!

From the airport, the obvious first stop was Austin's Citywide Garage Sale. Lots of really weird stuff, some really cool stuff and one single Popeye t-shirt that Nancy snagged for $5.

Then, two or three days full of eating passed. On Tuesday, Nancy took us to this really neat house in downtown Austin that she'd rented! What an awesome surprise! It had a beautiful deck with a spectacular view of Austin's skyline, and a table that was surely made just for round after round of Speed Scrabble. (I won the practice round, for the record. By a lot.) Here is the charming and curious cherub-boy fountain that was 100 years old.

Here's Aunt Nan on the deck, probably trying to spy on people in the buildings of the skyline.

Here I am, with a vintage hairstyle going on... (by that I mean, that's how I wore my hair every day in 4th grade.) We are in Alice's sweet convertible headed to... Guess where... A restaurant! Chuy's, to be specific. I tried fish tacos for the first time and they were excellent. And Matthew had ordered the Elvis Special, and when the server delivered his meal, Matthew says in a hilarious imitation of the King himself (lip curl and everything), "Thank you... Thank you vury much."

Here is the ceiling of Chuy's. If that is any indication of the over-the-top-ness of the decor, you can imagine what the rest looked like.

Here is our view of Austin from our deck.

And one night as we were sitting out there, we saw this odd orangey glowing light rising up from in between some of the buildings and it got higher and higher and started to arch a little and get bigger, then it started to fall and then it disappeared! We think we were the only ones to have seen it in all of Austin, because Jenny kept checking the news on her iPhone to see if the story broke, but it never did. We figured we should have been the ones to call it in since we were the only ones to see it. Here is a pretty accurate photo of what it looked like. After it disappeared, we put Nancy and Jenny on sky-watch while we were playing Speed Scrabble to see if it reappeared. It didn't.

Just like I did during our trip, I've lost track of the days here while recounting our adventures... I don't think I really knew what day it was until Sunday when we left. Wednesday vaguely rings a bell for this one, but I'm not really sure. Ahh, I love vacation. Anyway, Matthew the Extrovert chatted with this musician that was playing trumpet at a restaurant we ate at called Vino, Vino (wait, you guys went to a restaurant?!) and wound up getting invited to play a song or two with him at his next gig a few days later. His name is Ephraim Owens and he was super nice and very good.

We also spent a lot of time at Aunt Nancy's house, where she's done a ton of gardening and her yard is really beautiful! Matthew took some neat shots:

Nan's yard used to be a cattle field:

And now we're in Comanche! Here's Matthew in Granddad's pickup. We noticed when we drove up that it had a flat tire, so we miraculously found an air compressor in the back of the pickup and pumped it up enough to drive it to the tire shop so they could fix it. (Dig Matthew's farmy western shirt?!)

Here is the house that has gone up beside Lot #19 on Lake Comanche. And it must be livable now because I saw a lady standing on the porch! And I guess Comanche still knows the color green - no drought there.

Lot #19 could use a trim, by the way.

The lake looks good, right!

On our way back to Grandmother's house, we saw a roadrunner! Matthew declared that if it weren't so hot, he would've given it a good chase. Beep Beep!

Another part of Matthew's Texan Initiation: Pecan pie. Grandmother let me help her make it. We finished it by the time we left.

Grandmother has a little nest in one of her hanging plants on the front porch, and there had been eggs in it at one point, but we debated whether this little bird was sitting on the eggs, or whether he was a full grown baby.

Here we are on Grandmother's back porch. The bench was a tight squeeze.

Grandmother's house with her flag out front! Happy Fourth of July.

Then we're back in Austin! Here's Matthew with a giant guitar. Apparently, they are all over Austin. Ha, they kind of match.

Another surprise from Nan... We stayed in a hotel RIGHT in downtown Austin for the Fourth of July celebrations. Here is our view from the Congress Street Bridge we stood on to watch the fireworks.

That's our hotel with a festive light display.

Another good-looking building at night:

Okay I know what day we're on now! It's Sunday, our last day. We didn't just go straight to the airport, either... We did a lot of stuff before hopping a plane back to Mass. First, we went to a gospel brunch - The band was amazing and they sounded so country and western and Texan but then they announced that none of them were even from Texas! Fakers. Very good fakers, though.

Right after brunch we walked down to the....

(That's a door hinge!) Here's some other good shots:

Ha, these lightbulbs spell out T-E-X-A-S.

Here I am with Aunt Nancy under a Texas star.

And here is Matthew and me. I think his initiation is complete.

And that was about it! Thanks Nan and Alice and Grandmother for hosting us and showing us a great time. Can't wait to come back!

It's About Time!

2009-06-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

I apologize for not posting any updates during the last week or two... I had some trouble bringing files home to prepare them for the web but now everything is all straightened out and I have lots of stuff to show! You can click on each image to see it bigger. The last two weeks classes were Illustrator and Photoshop. Here's work from the Illustrator class:

First, a project where we were to pick a Chinese character from a list, and use the character to express its meaning without actually giving the direct translation. Can you guess what it means??

Here is an exercise we did to learn the pen tool. We had to duplicate the label on a kids shampoo bottle. Splish splash!

This project was to design a menu cover for a made-up restaurant. I don't know where I got the idea... I think I just began thinking about the backwoods and Appalachia in North Carolina and the Andy Griffith Show, Otis in particular. Ha! Otis would definitely go to this restaurant, if someone would lend him the money.

This next one is an assignment where we had to design a brochure cover for a Japanese Tea Garden. Audrey could definitely keep up at a Tea Garden, I think!

Then these last two were an assignment to illustrate an excerpt from a children's book. I picked a story called Penguin Pete's New Friends.

And here is the work from the Photoshop week!

First project: We had to find a high resolution photo of a car, and then extract the car from its background, change its color and add a few elements to make it look like a print ad. Here's the original photo that I found, or the "before":

And here's the after:

And here is our final project for Photoshop - it was to create a movie poster and DVD cover. I picked Where the Wild Things Are which is coming out in October and it looks so good! I did two posters and one DVD cover... Hope you like it!! And here is a link to the trailer for the movie, so you can check that out too!

Poster Number One:

Poster Number Two (can you read it??):

And the DVD cover:

Thanks for looking!!!!

This Week's Work!

2009-06-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

I just finished my second week of class and I LOVED this one!!! It was called Type, Layout and Color. The professor was excellent and the projects were tough but I really, REALLY enjoyed it!

The first project is one where we had to pick a word from a list, and define the word by just manipulating the text. I wound up doing a lot of them because it was fun, but here are my two favorites:

For our final project for this week, we had to design type specimen, which is a booklet that showcases a certain font. Type specimens are released with new fonts and other than a few things that the booklet must include (history behind the font; examples of the upper and lower case alphabet, numbers and other characters), the designer has total freedom.

We had a short list of fonts to choose from, and I picked Baskerville. If it were going to be printed into an actual booklet, it would need three more pages (which maybe I'll do!). But otherwise, I am really happy with how it came out!!

Type Hype!

2009-06-03T04:19:00.001-07:00

I love Type class. My professor exalts typefaces, talking fast and with great enthusiasm about the beauty of Helvetica's lowercase "a" and "g,"(it appears that Helvetica's where it's AT, yo) revering those type artists who spend an entire month perfecting a single letter.

Let's be honest, we all knew that Comic Sans sucks, but I learned that the creator of Comic Sans actually apologized for his sloppy work. (I didn't hate it because it was sloppy... Heck, I didn't even know it was sloppy! I just knew it was ugly!) Apparently he drew out the entire font in like, 20 minutes, and he said that if he'd known it was going to "take off" like it did, he would have spent more time on it.

Makes me want to become a font-snob and be able to recognize fonts on a whim and name-drop them in conversations. For example:

"Hi, what's your name?... Oh, Georgina! How Garamond Pro!" (Or something. Heh.) Or if someone makes a lame joke, I'll say, "Put that one in Comic Sans!" or says something uppity, "She's a Helvetica." YES!

Well, I'm going to make and study my font flashcards. Typeface Elitists, here I come!

Tom's Eatin' and Drinkin' Place

2009-05-31T19:00:00.000-07:00

Here you see me playing with a couple of great local musicians at a place called Tom's Eatin' and Drinkin' place in Northboro. The band is called "Smoke and Mirrors" and we played a blend of Jazz, Blues, Rock and Funk. Emily took this picture. She was right there in the front the whole time. It was a small crowd but I think they all had a really nice time and enjoyed the music. The venue was a bit different than what I expected. We played downstairs in the basement where they have cooking classes. The baked halibut was excellent and think at the very least you should look at their website because it is a strange buisness model and you will get a kick out of it.

I hope you are enjoying Emily's posts. She is really working hard with her classes. I love coming home and hearing all about it. her passion is contagious and I have been practicing Trumpet and Flute alot more lately.

This Week's Stuff

2009-05-29T14:23:00.000-07:00

Here is some of my work from my first week of school! In all of these assignments, I had to create three posters that work individually and also together as one poster.

The first three are posters for a "Machines Expo" convention or something and the fourth is one where I had to pick an object (food, texture, whatever) and create an event or company that uses the object. I picked coffee.

Photoshoot

2009-05-28T14:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at lunchtime, I went up to the dining area of the school facility with a few classmates. We sat down to eat and another student approached our table with a ginormous camera in hand, and struck up a conversation about her latest photography assignment, which was to take pictures of students eating lunch. The conversation about her assignment carried on for a few minutes and then began to be punctuated by pauses which increased in awkwardness as time wore on. I thought, 'If she wants to take pictures, why doesn't she just ask?' But the initial awkwardness of the situation isn't really the important part. It was the sudden swagger that took over my being that surprised me.

Just as I was on the verge of offering to pose with my baby carrot stick (an offer which now I recognize as a red flag), she asked if she could take a few photos. She also warned us that the rest of her class would probably be coming through to complete the assignment as well. As her flashbulb began popping and I was wondering whether to smile and acknowledge the camera, or to act casual and pretend that impromptu photoshoots happen all the time (at first they were truly candid...), the room began to fill with other students with equally monster-sized cameras, and then they were snapping away too.

I have to hand it to the first girl (of course I've forgotten her name): She had the decency to give fair warning, and I'm glad she did! By the end of the lunch hour, I found myself posing on purpose, attempting to appear in every shot, and digging out my trash and re-using it as a prop for authenticity. I was even smiling with my eyes! (If you don't know that phrase, you haven't watched enough America's Next Top Model.) I knew it was going to my head, and as my vanity grew, so did some kind of inner mortification. I was slightly horrified that I didn't stop myself from really hamming it up.

And as if having the "paparazzi" document my lunch hour yesterday wasn't enough to send my ego soaring into the stratosphere, they were back today!

AND I think heard someone (maybe my ego) say this project is for the school's website. Awesome.

Backtracking

2009-05-27T14:16:00.001-07:00

A little bit of backtracking is necessary - There is a special item that has been hanging on our wall for the past couple of months, and because of its prominent, but not-very-near-my-computer display, I have been forgetting to take a picture of myself with it and post it on the blog.

Until today.

After leaving my job at Walden last Thursday and spending the weekend in a remote, natural, beautiful place where, in the absence of distracting things like computers, lots of thought took place (very appropriately Thoreau of me, right?), and I decided that my proudest achievement during my time at Walden has been summed up and mounted on the very wall I previously mentioned. Actually, it didn't take very much thought to decide that. In fact, I already knew before this weekend that it was my most rockstar victory because what, except for the most staggeringly prestigious, honorable, and exclusive award, gets its VERY OWN PLAQUE??!!!!

That's right, Employee of the Month, right here! Now I know they only give this award out at like, Walmart and stuff and really everybody gets a turn to be fair, right, but the month of March was MY turn, baby!!!! Wooooo! And I didn't get a VIP parking spot because the parking lot at Walden is even more exclusive than Employee of the Month award, if you can believe that.

Here I am with my sweet plaque:

That photo WILL be going on my resume. Maybe I'll just hand out an 8x10 copy of that photo to prospective employers in lieu of a resume. Yeah... excellent idea.

First Day of School!

2009-05-26T15:50:00.000-07:00

Here I go! Off to Waltham and ready to learn and get a sweet job after. Met some nice people and some weird people and I think it's going to be great!

Most Awesome Camping Trip EVER!!

2009-05-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

Well we have just returned not too long ago, all salty, sunburned and wind-blown from the lovely Horseneck Beach, Massachusetts! Wooooohoo! And we are now experts in the following areas: Campfire building, smore making (and eating), tick-identifying, meal-inventing and many other Boy Scout-badge-worthy things!! And we took the whole "Be prepared" idea seriously - except for we forgot pillows. But I (Emily) remembered the truly essential items like iPods and mascara.

So here is our trip in pictures and captions!

This here is the view from our campsite - see the ocean??!! I was so excited! A short little walk to the beach. That beach however was not for spending much time on - instead of sand, it was covered in big smooth stones! Maybe in 1,000,000 years those stones will have turned into sand.

Here is Matthew working on getting our tent set up... Contrary to the photo-evidence, I DID help. It actually took us several tries before figuring out where all the velcro and cleat locks and whatever the heck else matched up. Notice the lack of trees - Matthew was disappointed there were no trees.

And there he is standing proudly next to our little tent! And I was standing just as proudly from behind the camera. I helped, I swear.

And here we have our first campfire dinner! That pot has now been designated as the campfire pot. Because it is now black. But what is more important is what is IN the pot, which is Deluxe Kraft Macaroni and Cheese! And of course, hotdogs.

It was probably about 5:45am in this photo, but we can't be totally sure because for several days straight, we had no idea what time it was! Not because we didn't try. It was liberating though, not having to adhere to a clock.

And this is breakfast! The best breakfast ever, I might add. Biscuits on a stick. We also dunked them in coffee and then cinnamon and sugar (more camping essentials). We got to be pretty good campfire-builders. Matthew discovered several patches of Japanese knotweed (his standard flute-making material) and discovered that it burns well too!

This is a different view from our campsite. ....Right next to the playground. Not so bad during the day, lots of interesting people-watching. But the kids didn't leave the playground after it got dark! Yelling and screaming until 4am...(well probably not - probably more like 10pm. But we didn't know what time it was, remember!) It wasn't as bad the last few nights, probably because it rained.

Also, one of the days, Matthew was sawing away on a piece of knotweed for a new flute, and this little boy came up and asked what he was doing. So Matthew showed him how to work a few of the tools and let him sand a bit, and then helped him make a few panpipes. The kid's name was Logan and he stuttered. He was cute, and very proud of himself after making the panpipes.

This is our second dinner on the campfire! And it was a doozy - multiple courses, tin foil, Pam - whew! We had some delicious steaks, as you can see, and in those shiny pouches were some delicious vegetables, and those black things are potatoes! Mmmm. Smores followed every meal, by the way. Including breakfast this morning.

A good one of the campfire after dark - It did get cold! May in the northeast is not the same as May in North Carolina. Pajamas consisted of socks, leggings, sweatpants and several shirts.

Here we are, pretending it's warm.

And here's one where it actually was warm! Our last day, we packed up all of our stuff and drove half a mile down the road to the Horseneck Beach State Reservation (getting plenty of use out of that season pass!), because for the first time in several days it was not raining! And I think God knew that I only had shorts left, because it was above 70 degrees! So we spent the day at the beach. I read a book and Matthew worked some more on his flute.

Where's Emily??!!

And one last one for the road... Happy Memorial Day!!!!

End of an Era

2009-05-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

Emily worked her last shift as a full time employee at Walden School and we couldn't be happier. We are getting ready to go camping right now and you can bet we'll have some great pictures for you next week. Here are a few images from the last month. My Mom came to visit and we showed her Boston. Emily planted some flowers. The dresser that we planted last year has grown back and how! Also, check out the mushroom that grows next to our trash cans. No smurfs came walking out of it.....just this green eyed spider!

Taxes

2009-04-06T05:15:00.000-07:00

With some encouragement I decided to make a much overdue post this morning. So you get to see Emily in tax mode. I think all we need to do is put it in an envelope and mail it out now. With a week to spare! Also here you see Emily making an excellent meal in our newly configured apartment and kitchen. We'll have to make-do without a dishwasher since we won't be moving anytime soon. But at least now we have better lighting and tunes to listen to.

Winter Wonderland

2009-02-11T14:20:00.000-08:00

Spring may or may not be coming early, I didn't get to hear what Phil saw last week. Shadow or not, we still have snow, and so we took a little stroll last weekend to enjoy it while it lasts. It is getting warmer out though. No complaints really.

Happy valentines to you all. Sorry we have not been keeping this blog up to par.

Snow!

2008-12-21T05:44:00.000-08:00

We got dumped on big time. There is at least 10 inches out there, maybe a whole foot in some places. Good thing I shoveled a little at a time. Emily made it to work just fine this morning.

p.s. I just realized that the last post has only a picture and not a video. You'll have to wait for Emily to post the video.

And it is still coming down right now!

Lost Kayak

2008-12-21T05:38:00.000-08:00

You may have heard about my little trip down the local river in my kayak. This is a video that Emily took only seconds before I rolled the kayak and took a very cold dip in the water. We have still not reclaimed the kayak. What a way to go. It had rained for at least 48 hours straight and the water was way too high and way to fast for me. I encountered a tree branch and tried to push it out of the way. The kayak slipped out underneath me and I had to wade to the shore. The water was up to my neck and I somehow managed to keep ahold of my paddle.

Historic Boston

2008-12-02T18:42:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving

2008-12-02T18:38:00.000-08:00

My name is Matthew and it's been two whole days since I've watched a feature length film.

2008-11-15T12:55:00.000-08:00

Some people might think we are weird for watching upwards of eight movies a week. What they should factor in is the supply not the demand. Sure we require entertainment, who doesn't, but we are just victims in this library system overpopulated with blockbusters, documentaries, independent films, B-movies, TV on DVD, you name it. If they didn't limit us to four movies each per week we would be in real trouble.

New Apartment Building

2008-11-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

Here is a sneak peak at the building that Emily and I will be living in as soon as construction is completed. You can see them hard at work in the rain on a Saturday morning. My bet is they will be done by January like they said.

One nice hill

2008-11-15T12:41:00.000-08:00

It may not look like much now but wait till the first snow. There will be a line of kids (plus Matthew and Emily) ready to ride down on sleds, lunch trays, plastic trash bags, cardboard boxes or whatever they can come up with.

Extra Curly

2008-11-15T12:32:00.001-08:00

Sometimes things just get out of hand around here.

Not so Daily Dunkle

2008-11-09T06:46:00.000-08:00

A sampler of the season. Pumpkins, turtles, beards and birthdays. All the best from Massachusetts.

If I Only Had a Grain...

2008-10-18T08:40:00.001-07:00

Monday Surprise.......

2008-10-13T15:17:00.000-07:00

Well Emily got mandated today so she is not going to get home until 9pm. That left me to be a little shutter bug, and who wouldn't want to snap a few shots with all this beautiful October color. It's amazing that over the weekend we went from about 75% green leaves to about 40% green leaves. In these pics you'll get a chance to see the outside of our house as well. We live on the bottom floor. You'll notice the incline of the road (or the house, kinda hard to tell) and the challenge we face when confronted with snow. By the way, Emily and I have a bet going on when our first snow this winter will be. I, for the sake of choosing a memorable date, chose Emily's birthday (November 7th). She chose December 1st, and I think that is because she would like to think that we won't have snow anytime before Thanksgiving. We'll see what happens. The loser has to make a snow angel (with limited apparel) and prepare hot chocolate for the winner (maybe we will share).

You'll also notice our drivway is empty (except for the growing pile of leaves) and that is because, like I said, Emily got mandated. That should have been my cue to spend a little extra time at work myself but I can never last very long when I've spent the whole day polishing a flute. It may surprise you to know how mentally and physically exhausting it can be. I suffer mostly from lack of variety. Holding the flute body (the tube) and the flute keys (the buttons) against a spinning cotton wheel in the same position for over 5 hours straight really tests your posture as well as your sanity. And speaking of sanitation.......after a whole day of polishing I am covered with all kinds of polishing compound and miscellaneous debris. So at five thirty I said "enough". That doesn't mean that I don't like my job. I like it perfectly well. I have been doing very well and they recently asked me to spend one hour everyday cutting headjoints in addition to my current job which is finishing. I've been wanting to work on headjoints since I started this job. The headjoint is the part that you blow into and accounts for about 50% of the sound and performance of the instrument. Today we had a very special guest who came to work with our Master Headjoint Cutter. The guest was the former Principal flutist of the London Symphony Orchestra, Paul Edmund-Davies. Now don't tell Emily, but someone told me that he played on the soundtrack for the Harry Potter movies. As I overheard him playing in the other room I think I may have been put under some kind of spell...........

Why a Blog?

2008-10-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

I'm just getting into this blogging thing, and I am getting into it for a few reasons:

1. I've seen more than one job posting where employers request a link to your blog if you have one in addition to your resume or portfolio (not that I would show this to anyone that could possibly hire me, but maybe once my blogging skillz have been recognized by thousands of adoring readers, I'll start a "professional" one and strategically select the crème de la crème for my future prospective employers).

2. An obvious reason for Matthew and I to blog is to keep our families updated on all of our adventures in between the times that we talk on the phone. That one was easy.

3. Two of the blogs that I have stumbled upon (both of them cataloguing anecdotes from their lives working in the restaurant industry) have gathered huge followings that neither writer ever expected when starting their blog. One of them was discovered and has already had a book published and is working on another (AND is going to be on Oprah!). So maybe I'll get discovered! I have a vague dream of writing a book someday. Or becoming an established writer of some sort. In high school and college, I found writing to be an agonizing task. I loathed writing papers and I got stuck so easily. I remember staring at the blinking cursor on a blank Word document and feeling the panic rise with every minute that ticked by, unable to eek out a single phrase. It makes me shudder to think about that kind of pressure.

Now though, I want to practice writing without finding it agonizing. I have good ideas sometimes and I would like to be able to get them out of my head without torturing myself over it. So I will keep reminding myself that this is not required, this is fun.

Another piece of advice that I have read in order to have a successful blog (who deems it successful, anyway?) is to update often. I will try my best to do that. It makes sense; updating a blog often increases the chance that people will continue to visit it, and it forces (this is fun, this is fun) me to practice.

This is fun, right??

Happy Fall Ya'll

2008-10-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

The weeks following the wedding have been great. I have been busy with the flute making but have found time for a few kayak trips in the lacal waterways. The Assabet river which runs directly through the center of our small town of Maynard, MA has a few Class I and Class II rapids which I will continue to practice on. We want to get a second watercraft so that Emily and I can both paddle together.

A week ago I turned 26 and Emily made a marvalous breakfast for me as well as a strawberry cake from scratch. Life is good!

Enjoy these images from the last couple weeks.

2008-10-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

A few images from "MaynardFest" and "OktoberFest".

2008-10-10T13:11:00.000-07:00

Here is Emily at our local neighborhood Eco-Store, Dunia! That is a Zen canvas. You paint with water and in a few minutes it evaporates and you can start again.

2008-10-10T13:09:00.000-07:00

Here is one of our new bowls with a delicious ice cream sunday. Emily made the whip cream herself with our new blender. Don't worry we shared.

2008-10-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

Had a chance to re-organize my workspace at home. I like to draw and play online chess. Now I can do both at the same time!

Hello

2008-10-10T13:03:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture Emily took a couple of weeks ago right before my second trip down the Sudbury river.

More Wedding Photos

2008-10-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

Wedding Photos!

2008-10-01T19:01:00.001-07:00

Our excellent photographer Rebecca Mill sent us all of the photos and we got them today! Here's some you haven't seen yet:

Third Week

2008-09-29T18:39:00.000-07:00

Last week, many exciting things happened. First, about 25 of our wedding pictures have been posted on our amazing photographer's blog: www.theindieimage.blogspot.com. She did an amazing job. She's sending us the DVD with a billion images on it that should be arriving in the mail any day now.

Also, Matthew took me on my first trip to Ikea on Saturday. It was an overload of cheap and trendy couches and curvy light fixtures, topped off with a Swedish meatball. Really! At the top of the warehouse is a restaurant (where, of course, you are forced to sit in the trendy chairs at the trendy table under the curvy light fixtures and rethink all of the willpower you so forcefully mustered up to avoid buying everything in sight!) and Matthew ordered the Swedish meatballs and he let me have one. Or three. And they were good. No sign of any jibber-jabbering Muppet chef that could have fashioned them, though. We made it out of there proudly with only one purchase: A new (and way bigger) French press. I think we'll make it back there soon.

The girls at Walden had their first soccer game last Tuesday, and they didn't do terribly! It was really fun to watch but I wanted very badly to join in myself, and I actually caught myself more than once "air"-kicking an invisible ball as I watched the game. My primary, Alissa, played goalie for the very first time in her life in the second half, and I cringed for her when the only shot that the opponents took went right into the back of the net. I could see from the sidelines that her eyes were filling up with tears and that her anxiety level was rising. She stuck with it though and didn't quit! For once, I knew what she felt like. The game ended with a tied score of 1-1, and already they are doing better than last season, where they endured a straight losing streak, scoring only one goal the entire season. Next game is tomorrow! Maybe we'll break the no-win streak, and I'll break my air-kicking habit.

It rained all weekend, starting on Friday, but Matthew braved the dismal weather and took his kayak out on the Sudbury River! The mosquitoes were out in clouds of full force which dissuaded me (more than the rain did) from standing on the bank to watch him paddle away. I hung out in the car with our brand new pumpkins(!!!). I picked out a hefty 30-pounder, and Matthew chose a traditionally squat and round one that didn't weigh near as much. Haven't carved them yet, but they are sitting nobly on the front porch to let our neighborhood know that we get it. Fall starts early here. We're catching on.

We're still trying to get all of our official stuff together - our marriage license came today so we'll go to get new licenses by the end of the week. And we can say we witnessed the Depression of the new millennium! Even though the only traces of it in my life are headlines saying that a lot of other people are panicking. I wonder if there was anyone in 1929 that didn't notice the stock market crash?

Matthew Finds His Inner Kayaker

2008-09-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

Clif bar safely and appropriately zippered into his lifejacket, Matthew set sail on a lazy mirror-like river in Concord. I sat under a bridge and read a book while Matthew paddled himself several miles up and down the river. It was a splendid September afternoon.

The Dwelling

2008-09-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

Here we have a photo-pedestrian tour of our apartment for those of you who have not yet made the extremely short, convenient and inexpensive trip up to see us. Heh.

As if you had just stepped inside, first we have a view from the back door, through which we enter most often. The back door leads right into the kitchen with the hopefully intentional off-white tile floor, and our retro-chic Italian table and chairs. (Ever since Matthew and I told people that the attire for the wedding was "outdoor chic," I've been uncontrollably adding "-chic" onto other varying descriptive words and I'm not sure why. Help.)

Next, we have the view into the room we have dubbed "The Studio." Pretend you have still just entered and are no longer interested in looking at the kitchen, but you have turned your head forty-five degrees to the right and you're now looking into the room where lots of the following takes place: Meal-eating, nap-taking, internet-surfing, book-reading, and right-brain-exercising. We spend lots of time in here. Here's Matthew in The Studio doing some creating.

Next, we have the place where we sleep. The doorway that you can see clearly in the kitchen photo leads straight into this bedroom. That black mountain on the bed is actually a massive amount of pillows.

Here's a different view (Matthew MacGyvered that bookshelf onto the wall from an upside-down hutch he found on the curb):

If you walk across the kitchen, you'll get to a sort of interim room where the bathroom and laundry room are. You can't see either of those in the photo, but imagine that they are to your right. That closed door leads to the dank, damp basement. Then if you keep walking you get to the living room.

Now we're in the living room! Which is mostly taken up by Matthew's kayak. We're also working on an insanely difficult billion-piece zebra puzzle on the coffee table. We've also stored the stuff in here that was replaced by all our new stuff. We're going to have a yard sale to try and clear out that corner.

Here's a view from the couch (craigslist bookshelves, woot!):

And one more from the corner, so you can see our other craigslist bookshelf that we colored on in every shade of green that we could find.

The end! Come see us in real life.

Emily's Haircut

2008-09-20T17:55:00.000-07:00

I got my hair cut today at a very trendy place called Shag in South Boston (or, "Southie" if you know what you're talking about. I don't.) A girl named Dayna cut it and she is tattooed and hip and has excellent bedhead. Here is what I look like now:

Not too short, and the blue tint is a side effect from my computer screen, not the new 'do.

We're Back!

2008-09-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

Welcome home to us! After arriving to Maynard gracefully under the cloak of darkness on Tuesday and swiftly unloading the car, we unwrapped/deboxed all of our wedding gifts, totally trashing our apartment. In the best way possible. The place looked like a Crate and Barrel warehouse. And the kayak is in the living room. I caught Matthew sitting in it, happy as a clam. Good thing that it's stationary, or he would drown in cardboard and tissue paper if he got much further.