Don't Taze Me, Bro

So within the past two days I have heard too many weird and random things in the news to not talk about it. Its been like a plethera of awesome.

Okay, first off, last night my co worker and I were talking about camel racing in Dubai. Why were we talking about camel racing in Dubai, you ask? Because sometimes our job is so slow and boring in the evenings, things like camel racing in Dubai come up. More specifically, there have been some blurbs in the news lately involving the ethics around the popular sport in the Arabian Gulf.



So as you might notice, the jockey isn't a real person, rather a robot. This is because some years ago children used to be the camel jockeys. However, wide spread allegations of child abuse caused the sport to switch over to robotic jockeys.

Or they could have just stopped abusing the kids. I don't know thats just my two cents.

I mean, here in the states we have real jockeys for our most famous horses and we do just fine. Seabiscuit? Secretariat? You get my drift here?

Anyway...



These robots are controled on the side lines by adults. The robots have the ability to pull on the reins, can use a motorized whip, and can kick the camel. They also have a walkie talkie attached to them so that the guys on the sidelines can yell orders at the camels.



But it gets better(worse). Police were tipped off to two men who apparently had enabled the robotic jockeys to be able to taze the camels to make them go faster. NOT COOL ARAB CAMEL ABUSERS, NOT COOL.

You can't make this shit up.

So second random news story,

apparenly off the coast of Miami, Florida a grand piano appeared on one of the sandbars. No one knows how it got there, or who left it there. The piano itself is too big for someone to have just taken a personal boat out there to abandon it. Environmental officlas say it is not their job to remove the piano, as it poses no threat to the natural life around it.



Thats a really lame picture and I was hoping for a better one but I think this story is kinda cool. Reminds me of that awesome movie "The Piano". Here is a clip as well as the amazingly beautiful theme song from the film

If you havent seen this movie yet, get to it.

In other unrelated things....

I was browsing the web circut and found this awesome collection of photos from the 1960's. The photos were taken at a popular night club in Cape Town, South Africa by a bouncer. Who says people your parent's age dont know how to party????



























Not so different from now a days huh?

We can learn two things from these pictures. One, people of our parent's generations aren't as lame as we tend to think they are. Second, when people of prior generations get on us kids about how immoral and sexually rampant we are, LOOK TO YOUR OWN SINS GRANDMA!

Ciao

SFO to LAX, Baby!

So basically right now Im up at a hotel in South San Francisco. Tomorrow afternoon my flight is scheduled to take me to Los Angeles. Work is over for now, school is over for now, and Im ready to have some good times with my buddy Jenna!

School ended last week, which is pretty awesome. I was getting sick of having to write essays every week. It was close to no fun whatsoever. But anyway, my mom and I celebrated the old fashioned way with margaritas and...mustaches????



So I guess I was Salvador Dali/Frida Kahlo and my mom was Emiliano Zapata/Pancho Villa???

It was good times until Office Depot called and said some asshole regular customer went psycho in the copy center and I had to come in early to do damage control. Then he didn't even come pick up his shit the next day!! Ugh...But thats all in the past, and Im headed for good times, so no worries!

Anyway, here's something cool I found recently. An artist/interior designer built an 'invisible' tree house in a forrest in Sweeden. Its super cool! At first he had some issues with getting some approval because officials thought it would be a harm to the environment, and birds could hurt themselves by flying into it. But he developed a mesh protective shield for the birds, and the tree house is almost 100% eco friendly.

Super cool.




Heres a pic of the inside


Man, what Id give to check that out for myself! Its gorgeous, a real piece of art.

Here's another cool thing I found in the news recently,

So a collector went to a yard sale a few years ago and bought a set of glass negatives from some old photographs. After barganing down the price down to $45 for the whole set, said collector heard an off hand comment that these negatives look similar to those photographs taken by famed American photographer, Ansel Adams.

So, this gentleman took his collection to some experts, and the confirmed that the negatives were indeed missing Ansel Adams originals, and that $45 dollar find turned out to be worth 200 million dollars!

However, what I found to be the best part of the article was that this garage sale that the negatives were found at was in FRESNO, CALIFORNIA. As many of you know, I have lots of family in Fresno, and I have a few relatives who love going to yard sales and finding goodies, myself included. THAT COULDA BEEN US!!!

Anyway, I better get going. I had a long day today getting ready for my trip, and I also went to an open house for a grad school Im thinking about going to after SSU. Its located in San Francisco and called CIIS (California Institute of Integral Studies). Its a pretty groovy place, maybe I'll be there in just over a year ^_^

Wish me luck on my flight tomorrow!

-Caitlin

Put the Pen to the Paper

So one of my favorite things about summer is garage sales. They're so much fun. I went this last weekend and had a really great time.

Got this guy for 50 cents


and I also go this awesome leather purse


here's a close up of the other side, it has an Aztec calendar!


I've been wanting a purse like that for so long! Ive seen them at vintage stores for $30 and up and I got this gorgeous thing for 2 dollars! Its all leather and hecho in Mexico, baby!

So anyway...

I feel lame because I never have any time anymore to do the things I enjoy. But regardless of that, Ive been trying to explore my creativity and how I express myself artistically. Last week while hanging out with my friend Alexander, I did some free minded drawing where I just put onto paper whatever my mind came up with. Last week I also began my English summer course and we do a lot of work with poetry. So I guess I kind of combined the two and am writing streams of consciousness (or maybe subconscious) in my journal instead of writing structured retellings of my day. Here's a few, if you can read them anyway.


cont.....


There's always more to say on a bad day I suppose.


I tore those out from my journal. You people got to read some of my journal. How does that make you feel? You all probably think Im just an emo bitch, but I thought it was quite liberating to do.

I used my parents new scanner to upload those, now that they have a nice one I can upload my art more easily, ha!

More tasty things coming soon.

-Caitlin

Days of Summer

So summer break is finally here. That pretty much sums a lot of everything up.

I don't feel quite free. Work holds me down. But I have to say that when I'm not at work, I've been enjoying the warm weather and good company.

But for the most part I've been trying to enjoy my time away from academia. Although thats about to end too as I will soon be starting my summer school course which begins at 7:30 am. Thats gonne be fun. But for some reason Im not dreading it too much.

Anyway, I bought this really cool necklace over the weekend when I went out and about with Sean.



Ignore my gigantic mole :(

I have a ton of jewlery with birds and clocks. And this one is both!!! I really like it, kind of reminds me a bit of art deco 1920's. By the way, thats a real clock too, it ticks and has the real time.

So anyway, while Im at work (bored) I sometimes browse the New York Times for their art reviews. Recently I read a review on an artist named Henry Darger. His art is controversial yet whimsical and in my opinion quite stunning. He makes the kind of art that you can look at multiple times and discover new things about his pieces each time. Here's just a few:













There's a few different ideas about what he was trying to convey through his art, and some of it can be pretty brutal. I feel like art should provoke you in some way, if it doesn't, well then its just not art.

I've become very pretentious. Just a warning.

So this is what has been in my playlist as of late

Sleigh Bells


Portishead


Gonjasufi


Flying Lotus


HEALTH- USA Boys (really NSFW, there's some sexy time in it)


More to come.

Ta ta for now

-Caitlin