Base jumping off of wind turbines

Wind is my favorite kind of alternative energy. I also like to watch extreme sports, and this is the coolest combination of the two ever.

From the Huffington Post.




Once, a fellow airplane passenger told me about his engineering job, which is to design giant kites that pull oil tankers across the ocean. Apparently, fueling oil tankers takes quite a bit of energy, so the purpose of the kites is to make the process of transport more fuel efficient. The same guy told me that he does all of these extreme sports involving kites connected to road bikes and various things, which at certain speeds lift the vehicle off of the ground into the air. So awesome.

Water crisis

As many of you may know, Atlanta has been in a pretty severe drought for over a year. My county has all sorts of rules for the outdoor use of water, and a lot of people I know have started to adapt their water usage habits to conserve water. This is a really good example of resource scarcity forcing ingenuity and a shift to other lifestyles (one that I hope will also result from the high gas prices, but we will see).

One really interesting exemption from outdoor water usage is for reclaimed wastewater. This can mean a lot of things, but the most common are:

• Placing a bucket in the shower to collect water from washing your hair, etc. and using it to water your lawn or plants.
  
• Placing a bucket under the sink, with the pipe opening into it, to catch wastewater and use it as toilet water (that one is a little hardcore, admittedly)
• Catching rainwater in a barrel that then waters the lawn or your flower beds

These things all take a bit of adjustment, so in the meantime you may just install a more efficient showerhead, a dual-flush toilet, or use laundry detergents that allow you to decrease the amount of water you use.

What do you do to save water?

Another thing that I've had to deal with recently is that one of the water processing plants for my area lost power yesterday, and now we cannot bathe, cook with, or drink any tap water unless it is boiled first. I don't like using bottled water at all, especially now that I've switched to a Brita filter, but having to use it for washing veggies is just sort of ridiculous. Hopefully the water will get clean soon. I will say though--I really appreciate the convenience that water sanitation brings to my life.

Clocks from Uncommon Goods and bonus DIY tutorial

I am very aesthetically drawn to clocks, especially large ones with things
like pendulums or brightly colored hands. In practice, though, many of the more conventional ones, such as the CB2 Metropolis Wall Clock, remind me of those schoolroom clocks that I hated so much.

Fortunately, Uncommon Goods has an amazing selection of interesting clocks made from recycled and re-purposed materials.

The Tin Man clock is one of many metal-object creations that, despite their monochromatic color palette, would really stand out in both very colorful and black-and-white rooms.

The Infinity Clock is designed with large amounts of negative space in mind. Though the clock portion only takes up roughly 1 square foot, the hands extend beyond the base, and at certain times of day, break up the negative space that is the rest of the wall.

The most interesting and eye-catching clocks, though are these three, made of re-purposed cameras:



They are, in order, the Vintage Box camera clock, the Vintage Viewfinder clock, and the Vintage Flash Camera clock.

These got me thinking that a clock can be made out of any old item that you feel is worthy of being mounted on a wall or displayed on a table. This simple tutorial from the DIY Network shows you how to make your own clock using a simple kit from a craft store.

There are a lot of cool objects that I can think of that would be good for this purpose. I am thinking of painting a clock background onto a canvas and installing the clock in the middle of it.

DIY home decor

I am on a pretty small decorating budget, and given that I don't like most of the decorative items that I see in catalogues (or cannot afford the ones I love), I made some of my own.

One wall art idea that I had was to take pretty tissue paper from a recent purchase at Anthropologie and frame it with large Ikea Clips frames. The pattern is bleached white leaves and branches on blue paper, and it goes really well with my red sideboard, which you can see in some of the other pictures. Because tissue paper is cheap and thin, it is VERY easy to frame.



Another project I may undertake soon is to use the Ikea canvas framing kit to frame some pretty fabric. I can't find it on the website right now but I definitely saw it in the store yesterday.


The other major project I've worked on is finding and making decorative pillows for my bright, cornflower blue couch. All of the pillows that I found were either too expensive (who pays $50-100 for a pillow!?!?!) or not of the right color palette. Yesterday, out of desperation, I went to a fabric store to see if it would be less expensive to make my own. It was so much less expensive, in fact, that the cost of my supplies was less than one pillow that I was going to buy on Etsy for $22. Not only that, but I have an extra yard or so of fabric left over to make other things for around the house (or a cool skirt maybe?).

Here is the evolution of my decorative pillows. First, I sewed the covers. I don't have a sewing machine so this is all by hand. The fabric is canary yellow twill (kind of like the material that khaki pants are made of) and the filling is a down alternative because I'm allergic to down.


Here you can kind of see the brightness of my primary colored-living room, heightened by the addition of this pillow:


I decided to sew on some buttons before finishing up.




The finished product:



Now, if only I could find something for the wall behind that couch.

Amaryn Thai Noodle Bowl, Decatur

Amaryn Thai Noodle Bowl is sort of like Doc Chey's, except that they have the best coconut curry that I have ever tasted. It is perfectly spiced and perfectly sweet, with a generous helping of noodles, and very very good tofu. There was probably 3/4 lb. of tofu in my dish, the Spicy Eggplant curry.




I also had this beautiful Thai ice tea, which the picture really doesn't do justice. The tea was a gorgeous amber color, and the milk, when mixed in, made it so creamy and delicious. As always, it had that great floral essence that I love about this drink.

Overall, a good go-to place when you don't feel like cooking.

Taqueria del Sol, Decatur

Taqueria del Sol is a local favorite, with several locations around the city. My favorite one is just down the street--it is bright and airy, and utilizes my favorite color palette: white, yellow, and blue. Despite being housed in an old gas station, the restaurant makes great use of space. The seating area is in the "garage," but has been opened up on both sides, so that there is only a ceiling and two walls. The other walls are open to the outside air, and overhead ceilings keep the breeze moving. One of my favorite things to do is sit in Taqueria on a warm afternoon and listen to the sound of the wind going through the restaurant.

The food is excellent (cheap, fancy tacos, very good side dishes, enchilladas), but you should get there early to avoid having to stand in line outside.

New from West Elm

This fall, West Elm is changing my mind about two room accessories I usually hate: pleated lampshades and mass-produced art.

The Pleated Shade Table Lamp is a great balance of the modern and antiquated. In fact, I never thought that I would like anything with pleates quite this much, but the lines on this lamp are thick and superb. Also available as a floor lamp.



Wall Art inserts are also the last thing I would usually ever consider putting in my apartment (see Walter Benjamin). These are NOT your typical cookie-cutter hotel room wall hangings. They are fresh, cute, and most importantly, affordable. You could easily decorate for about $40. Thanks, West Elm!