Every year or so the local council does an ‘Inorganic Collection’. This basically means that all the stuff that you have that isn’t recyclable is placed out on the front verge for the council to collect and take away. It means that people with no morals won’t dump it illegally somewhere else, which is nice.

This year Inorganic week came about when we were moving things around, which meant that all the things we would have ignored till next year could go out on the front lawn. And oh all the stuff that went out!

There was all the usual crap, but a bunch of cute stuff too: a pair of red kid sized chairs, Some four foot tall wooden tulips, a plastic fish bowl, a glitter-y magic wand. Three years worth of pirated movies burned to CD (yeah, CD! I know! Old school . . .), and a hair straightener (that works. But we had three and decided that we didn’t need it).

There were dressers, and broken lamps and about twenty office folders, and tacky cushions from the 90s (think heart shaped, covered in purple and glitter fur) and just a ridiculous amount of stuff.

I started to set up an outside living room – we had more than enough stuff, but I didn’t quite have enough time.

Not because of the collection people, but because of the Scavengers! They are the best part about Inorganic Week, I think. The people that drive slowly up and down the street in their giant trucks or station wagons with trailers, watching other scavengers, eyeing up the piles of possible treasure, trying to spot something worth saving.

There was one gentleman, who would wait in his car while we were putting out stuff, and the second we were up the drive was out there looking through it, with a giant giant grin on his face! I was pretty stoked, actually. He stayed with our pile for ages.

It delights me that these people come and rescue bits and pieces from a future at the tip! Alot of is good stuff, it was just that we’d outgrown it or didn’t think it was worth selling. So I was stoked to see a guy with three kids take away the little red chairs, and a lady with two girls, noses pressed to the window take away my wooden tulips. And even the broken stuff, I had a great conversation with a metal smith who was collecting old bits of metal to make sculpture with. And with a girl who was collectioning random appliances (she left behind all the power cords, though. Safety first, I think).

I spent the afternoon on the porch, watching the scavengers come and go. Watching them pick through our stuff and find something they could use. In the half hour that I was out there no fewer than 12 people came and had a look at our stuff. At first I wondered if I should go down to the verge and try convince them to take bits and pieces, share the history behind the things we had thrown out.

But alas, the sun disappeared before I could make my mind up, and the scavengers disappeared with it. When I came back from work yesterday, the pile was much smaller. I guess they didn’t need much convincing.

Ah, Inorganic Week. I wish throwing out rubbish was always this brilliant. :)

Perhaps it’s just me, but sometimes I think it’d be wonderful to have a dogs nose, and to be able to smell all the interesting smells. This weekend just past Quinn and I went for a rambling walk, and for once instead of being quick smart about it, we ambled. And the more we ambled, the more he stopped to smell everything. The fallen leaves, the ferns at driveway corners . . . it was quite sweet, actually.

There should be more paying attention to the little things, I think. The change in seasons, the leaves that fall. And more taking the time to enjoy them. Oh, I wish there more sunlit hours in the day to go on more brilliant ambling walks!

A while ago I offered Just Miss a custom wordpress theme as a birthday present. I wasn’t sure whether she’d take me up on it, but in one of my afternoon design-y moments I designed and tweaked (and tweaked and tweaked) a possible theme and sent it her way. She might like it, she might hate it, she might not want to use it. Such is the way of presents, I think.

But I have to say that when someone you’ve created something for LOVES it, it is pretty much in my top 5 awesome feelings ever.

So I developed the theme (not without some serious frustration at DTR) and once it was all bug free she launched a fancy new site (justonemiss.com), with a fancy new theme!

Perhaps it’s just me, but I get such a kick out of seeing my designs in use. Seeing her blog rock my design all sweet like. Watching the comments and tweets roll in as she got more and more complements about it. Warm Fuzzies all round, I think.

There is a flickr photo pool that starts with ‘Design Is’. They have wallpapers that say things like ‘Design is Thinking Made Visual‘ or ‘Design is Created Reality‘ but really?

Design is AWESOME.

[Edit: After Kyla's super kind comments, I work for Sinter Design and Development, and if you'd like a wordpress theme, or a website or whatever you can reach me there, or you can find me on Etsy. :)]

In the middle of town there is this small little stall on a street corner that does THE BEST PANCAKES EVER. They are so fantastic, that The Square made two visits in as many days. Oh, I wish I worked in town again, there would be much pancake eating.

It’s hard to say what makes them fantastic, really. It could be that you can choose what goes inside the pancake (yes they come with FILLINGS!). I voted cheese the last two times, but The Third Quarter was keen on the cinnamon syrup one. It could be that the dough is left to rise a bit before being made into a pancake (which means it’s a bit more puffy than those ones you make at home). It could be that it’s made by two asian guys in paper sailor hats, or that it’s so typically asian it’s almost quaint. It could be that you can get a giant pancake, easily as filling as a meal, for $2.50.

And it’s not just us that thinks this little pancake stall is fantastic. When we were driving past on Friday Night The Fourth Quarter said they were closed, and then, “Oh wait, it’s just that THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE OUTSIDE I COULDN’T SEE THE LIGHTS.”

I think it really is a testament to it’s awesomeness that a bunch of people are willing to stand out in the cold on the street to wait for fancy pancakes to be made for them. You get them in a brown paper bag, fresh off the grill. They are usually too hot to eat straight away, I managed to burn my tongue trying to eat the first one, but my god is it worth it. Delicious goodness indeed!

Oh Korean Pancake, you are brilliant. Two Thumbs Up!

I usually send all my packages wrapped in brown paper, if I can. I like smell, and the texture. And it always looks super cute. :) I <3 sending mail, and I don't really do it often enough (I once was part of a Marvellous Mail community, where people would send packages. But I got a bit snobbish, and only wanted to SEND them).

Anyway, I sent out a bunch this week, and I think the best part was sending out the package with Mail ‘Bots all over it:

Totally. Awesome. Much better than mail without Mail ‘Bots :)

A while ago I stopped by to see a friend, and her little one was colouring with crayons. We joked around and discussed how things were when WE were kids, and she mentioned watching a Seasme Street about how crayons are made.

The great thing about the internet is that you can still find that stuff from years and years ago, and so I searched youTube and tada:

As I watched it, I thought about how labour intensive it was. While yes, alot of it was still done by machinery, it’s not likely that that guy is still manually scrapping off the excess wax. I was right, you know. I found another segment, not by Seasme Street:

More machines, less people. I was relieved to see that they still use people for some of it. Just not as much anymore.

Still, I guess times change? It was a cute trip back, no matter how briefly it lasted. :)

These were taken when we were in New Plymouth a while back. It’s been so dismal in Auckland the last little while. Rain and wind . . . and often it’s so dark by the time that I get home that it’s not me taking Quinn for daily walks anymore. :(

I’m glad we still have all these photos. It was a great weekend away, the walks were new and different and quite dramatic, actually (check out the surf, and the black sand, and the driftwood scattered over the beach). We don’t have walks like this in Auckland.

I’m holding out till the weekend, we’ll have our walks then, I think.

- George Santayana.

I don’t do alot of design work in my current role, which is understandable. I wasn’t hired as a designer, and I have zero design training (my degree was all about the technical implementation side, and about usability) so that’s kind of understandable.

But I like web design. Creating cute websites, or wordpress themes or whatever. And while I’m not working on any big projects I put aside a little time each day to make something cute. Refine a logo, or a create theme overview, or some colour swatches or something. Just little things to refine my eye, bolster my design skills. And a friend of mine suggested that I DO something with these little pieces of practice.

So, I started an etsy store (rargBanners.etsy.com). It’s kind of ordinary, actually. I sell one-off premade banner packages, which is actually an okay format for my little doodles and whatever. The problem is, now that I have a store, I kinda hoped that I’d manage to actually sell something.

It appears that I’ve entered into an already saturated market. It doesn’t matter that my designs are prettier that alot of whats out there (though, I’m a little biased. I also recognise that there are some that kick my behind quite nicely), it appears that I’m not going to sell anything via the etsy search engine unless some one stumbles over it head first.

It also appears, that if I’d like to sell something I need to pimp it, and well. I’m kinda adverse to pimping something that started off as a daily design exercise, you know? My main goal wasn’t really to sell anything. Unfortunately etsy has (very small but still existent) listing prices so I’d at least like to make that cost back.

Anyway, I figured pimping could almost be excused if I used it as a critiquing exercise. So, here are a couple of the banners I’ve created. Let me know what you think? What you like, what you don’t like? What seems ridiculous, what’s really cute, what I should and shouldn’t have done?

These ones are all animal themed. I thought they were kind of cute.

Anyway, let me know what you think?