Gray

So in titling this post I had to pause and decide if I should use 'grey' or 'gray'.  For some reason I'm much more partial to 'grey' but the "traditional american spelling" is 'gray' so we'll stick with that.

So in (approximately) 10 days and 22 hrs BYU will host (presumably) nationally ranked Oregon State in BYU's annual homecoming game.  This is a special game because BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall is a graduate and former assistant coach of Oregon St.  Also it will be the cougars first real test since barely loosing to Boise St. and the first of three huge and difficult games that make up the meat of BYU's schedule this year.

Finally, it is also the first time that BYU will not wear white, or blue as their primary color.  I'd like to say that BYU has been a uni-staple, but between 1999 and 2004 they went a little crazy with uniform ideas, but in 2005 settled back down into the tradition.  This month all that tradition gets a little tweaking with a (jumping on the bandwagon) black out.

In the uni-watching world we call this BFBS, and black for black's sake is generally frowned upon, as is grey for grey's sake, or pretty much using any color that isn't one of your team's official colors.  But I don't care, these uniforms are gonna rock.  Why? because I said so.  While this comes as a surprise, it's not quite as jaw-dropping since the idea was leaked back in April.

All this thought of BYU uniforms makes me want to compile an awesome database of their uniforms... but for now I'll leave you with the beautiful pictures of BFBS.

You're probably wondering why I called this post Gray, well it's because of this beauty.  That grey with the blue!  ohh it is soooo good!!! I LOVE IT!  if they did one thing right here, it's the use of grey.  boom.

Oil

For some reason I love this logo, like a lot.

For those of you who don't know about former NFL teams, this is the logo of the (since moved to Tennessee,) Houston Oilers (and being in Tennessee where there's no oil, the became the Titans... go figure).

The logo is just simple, nicely colored, and it says a lot about Houston, Texas, the oil industry, and the history of all those.  It's just cool, and you never see it around anymore because the new Houston football team chose worse colors and an ugly logo.  So I decided to memorial-ize the Houston oil derrick as a 3D sketch, 'cause I do that.

BOOM

I know, it's pretty cool, right?  I worked pretty  hard on that... ok, like 3 hours maybe.  It's actually a REALLY complicated structure to model without proper structural design software (I use a free google product).



On a completely unrelated note:  I was at wal*mart a couple weeks ago when I saw huge boxes of cereal on sale (huge as in almost 2 lbs).  I bought some not knowing that my wife wouldn't eat Reece's Puffs, and I didn't really think I'd get sick of them.... but 2 lbs of cereal last like a month!

photography

Sometime I just like to post pictures.  For more details about our trip to Moab and Arches National Park, see our family blog post.

Delicate Arch

Alex is in the picture if you look carefully.

Fly

The Balancing Rock

The background is really amazing in this photo... as is my beautiful wife.

a shoe print we followed for almost 6 miles

... talk about blue.

fuel rods

Take a look at these two pictures:

Picture I found by searching google images for:
"Nuclear control rods"

Picture I took of a model that
I made using Google Sketchup

You see the similarities right?  I mean sure the second one is a much more basic computer graphic image and covered on the outside, but they are very similar looking objects.  Which is why I have chosen to talk about this today, because they are not similar in function or location.  In fact you might think I'm crazy when I tell you that I think that a chandelier in the Oquirrh Mt. Temple reminds me of a nuclear power plant.

Image from the church news web-site

Look carefully at the chandeliers in this rooms and you might notice the glass-like rods sticking out of the bottom.  It is these chandeliers that I have tried to reproduce in the model I pictured above.  You might think I'm crazy, but the similarities are undeniable.

On a side note, I love the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.  I tell people that I got married there because I loved the architecture, which is true, but really I got married there because it is a temple of God, and there I could be sealed with my wife for this life and for all eternity.  It just happens to be the most beautiful temple (imho) in the area.  I love the chances we have to go and worship in the temple again.

Uni-forms

You may not know this, but I love sports uniforms, more to the point I love college football uniforms.  Considering that Nike, Under Armor, and others are spending millions, possibly billions on creating cool, trendy, and stylish uniforms that college recuits will like, it's not a surprise that I (a near-college age male) like them.

Because of my slight obsession with the college uniform scene I found a blog called The Uni-Watch.  It is run by uniform enthusiasts who are quite thorough in their coverage of uniform changes, updates, discrepancies, and specialties.

Through this blog I stumbled upon a very narrowly minded site tracking the Oregon Duck uniform changes (most would say it was the ducks who began this national uniform trend).  I also found The Gridiron Uniform Database, a complete collection of NFL jerseys worn every game for the past several years.

After this years explosion of college football uniform advancements some devoted uni-watchers decided to expand the gridiron database to include college football, and this is the result.

If you notice the second team on this list, Boise State, (the were second at the time of this writing but that could change) who's uniforms were reproduced here by none other than you're truly, me.

I will say, I do believe they are quite the work of art.  And hopefully I'll be able keep up weekly with the new uni-combos they wear and make improvements eventually to those currently 'done.'  (I forgot the name on the back of the first two, oops.)

NCAAF Gloves

Quite a bit of hullabaloo has been made recently regarding hand signs in college football. Over the past year or so there have been a flew flags thrown over 'excessive celebration' relating to the using and showing of hand signs after touchdowns.

Most recently, Fox Sports' Mike Pereria complained that the Oregon Ducks should get penalized similarly for their O sign.  Then after further clarification from officials and administrators he recalled his statement, saying that flashing the hand sign was ok to use in a 'non-taunting' fashion.

This is probably a good thing, since more and more teams are getting awesome gloves that make for sweet glove-palm salutes.

Entré Les Photos!

UGA

Oregon State

U of Miami (FL)

Horned Frog (TCU)

TCU

Stanford

Boise St. (probably the best design)

Army

Navy

Michigan State

LSU (totally awesome)

Florida

Florida State

Alabama

Texas

Nebraska (a little over kill with the 2nd pair)

And if you want to see more Nike Pro Combat Unis take a look at these news stories from the first three years of uniform releases.  First Second Third

Mutual Gift

This past weekend Stephanie and I celebrated our first anniversary!!  Our time was occupied with babysitting stephanie's cousin's kids, but we did go to Seven Peaks for the day.  One great thing we did was buy an anniversary gift for each other together.  Since getting our wonderful new camera for graduation we've been wanting to get some lens filters for it.

A month or so ago we went to a camera shop where we were presented with several very expensive filters.  Last week and I browsed around on the internet I found on amazon.com a whole set of filters for about the price of a single filter in the store.  We did a little investigation, shopped around the world wide web and placed our order.  The set we chose came not only with three standard filters, but also four macro lenses, somewhat of a bargain package.

Today I set out to test the filters to see just how effective the were and just to have fun in general:
The whole set (I also used the fluorescent light filter even though I shouldn't have, hence the purple-ish hue)

Polarizing Filter on, not polarizing

Polarizing filter, twisted 90 degrees (polarizing)

The fluorescent light filter again outside

The macro filter set (really just magnifying glasses, also useful for burning ants and leaves...)

Another example of the polarizing filter

 4x picture of my shorts

Art is...

This is going to be kind of long, so please bear with me. First I'd like to start off with an interesting view on art, as told by Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World in his blogg:

Jim: I don’t usually discuss what songs are specifically about. But I think Table is worth talking about because it can help explain why that is. I was working at an art supply store off and on in between Static Prevails tour legs. At the end of the month we would be instructed to rip off the covers of the magazines we didn’t sell and box them to be returned. Being a not so great-paying retail gig, the staff would have little remorse just taking the old zines. I would check out Flash Art and Blind Spot. I found myself liking Maurizio Cattelan’s stuff. It was engaging in a way I hadn’t expected. He was the first person I found presenting art in a way that got you to think about what art really is. 


The local art scene was totally different than the music scene. Working at the store helped me find out about openings and showings. My group of friends were living in the university area but no one was going to school. We would hit up any and all openings. It felt like we were infiltrating a secret society, taking all their free food and drinks. Once, one of my dance-based coworkers had a performance on the college campus. It was tied in with some other local people’s work. Some with visual art, some with human-involved installation pieces. While we were outside waiting for my friend’s dance piece to start, there was a girl cleaning the ground with the tail of an all white dress. I think I was the only one of us who noticed. She went behind us and across a courtyard very slowly until she got to a candle lit table that had already been set up. She just sat there picking out the dirt from her dress into a few dozen tumblers. It occurred to me this was intended to be art. I know that sounds funny. This image of her stuck with me and for a while I couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t because I had been searching for some deeper meaning in why she was presenting her piece. It was because I realized it doesn’t matter why. This is the reason I usually steer conversations away from exact, specific explanations of lyrics and song-meanings: there is no correct way to interpret art. And there is no meaning more important or special than the one the listener/reader/viewer decides for themselves. 



He then goes on to talk about how this song just developed over time, creatively. I had read this once randomly through a Twitter link, but it stuck with me, I will probably always remember how he spoke of the meaning of art as no meaning at all. I feel that often in my life when I have tried to be artistic or done something creative, often there is simply too much meaning in what I have tried to do. Writing a song about a girlfriend, or an event. I try to make the song fit perfectly to the situation, and it just never turns out right. I think what I may be lacking is the concept of ‘based on’ where you don’t have to literally tell the story of something that already happened, but you can simply take the concept of it, and tell your own story. It may have the same beginning middle and end, but all the filler stuff is what you can make up, and what truly makes it an artistic endeavor.
So today I thought of it again, let me explain how this came about (I enjoy following the progress of my mind) First I was organizing my iTunes playlists. I get really annoyed when there are too many lists that you can’t really find the one you want, but today I discovered that you can make folders of playlists… so I put all my ‘classic playlists’ into a folder (labeled ‘Classics’ of course). Then I had more room to make a new playlist. I began to make a Car Dance playlist (possibly to be burned someday) for playing in the car and dancing to. It was comprised mostly of techno music, dance-pop and a couple rock songs. Since I was all over itunes I decided to look around the store when I noticed that a new music video was available from The Killers for one of their songs that I love, A Dustland Fairytale. I searched You Tube and found this beautiful video, and was naturally fully intrigued by the meaning behind it. As I watched a little ‘behind the scenes’ spot on it, I heard a quote saying the video was about such and such… which made sense, but to me it opened up my eyes to the idea that this video could mean anything you wanted it too. There is no official yes or no clear cut meaning, but it conveys feelings, attitudes, and emotions to us which we can then interpret for ourselves. Needless to say I was inspired and wrote this blogg.