nico's gonna goes kray zeee

welp. it's a week after lenny's birthday and i guess i've recovered as much as i'm going to.

i REALLY wanted to get him this:

max knight's walking bike brings together two of lenny's favourite things... shoes + bike.
unfortunately i couldn't get my hands on it so instead we celebrated for a week straight.
two saturdays ago we started a tour de beer mid-afternoon, sushi for dinner, followed by the company of some friends and more beer.




sunday i worked 9 hours and i can't remember anything after that, but i'm sure there was booze involved.
monday we joined avana and the gang at the reef for a pitcher of something slushy and delicious. lenny had the feesh. i discovered i perfer the warm chick pea salad to the jerk tofu quesadilla. still yummy.
tuesday i realized i got the irish heather confused for the six acres. went down with lenny to scope out the joint, but the heather closes early, so we went in for last call at the acres.

from there we proceeded up to doolin's for live music and a couple pints. ha.
wednesday, for the actual big day, i took lenny for a sunset dinner at watermark.









home for dessert - we paired the cake with some kilkenny.




thursday we cruised around...


then friday all the stops were pulled.
our spot at the irish heather turned out to be pretty sweet.
the pictures are a complete mess because i was even more so.







we eventually made our way to the plaza.
first i had to stop to check out what it's like on top of a caterpillar.

darbs and lenny acted unimpressed, but obviously there were.



i'm amazing. front to back it's ian, mateo and lenny.

thankfully the shitty clubzone photographer got some better snaps of a few of us...













veni and mike graciously held the after-party but i was beyond picture taking by that point in the evening.
we also owe ryan a big thanks for our slumber party in his living room.
the next morning i felt like i had been run over by a semi, looked it too, tire treads and all.
lenny introduced me to my first japadog and those things somehow gave us the strength to bike up the hill, home.
and let me tell you, work that evening was beyond trying.

alright this blogging break is over!
i'm drowning in the shit i'm pulling out of my ass for end of term.

blog's in lenny's capable hands til april 20th. peas OUT.

I had a Birthday.

I turned 27 on the 2nd. I got a Guinness cake, socks and some fly kicks.
2 friends called to say happy birthday along with the fam, the rest of you are on my hitlist.
You know who you are, you had a chance to redeem yourself by helping bruva out with his birthday dinner but I guess it was cutting into too many peoples crunk fund. Ya jerks!
Was good seeing so many people out though!

Anyhoo, thanks to my lady for making this one of the better birthdays, and also big thanks to Veni & Mike for making it one of the better parties for the second year running!

No pics yet... I'm sure they'll surface

Yeah!

Now THIS is what the fuck I'm talking about! Yeeeeaah!

NEW BIKE!

So, around this time last year my rather long work days and rather shit diet and somewhat crap amount of free time left me with minimal exercise time. So, I bough me a bicycle and started doing the 16K commute from Mount Pleasant to Uptown New West and so started the current obsession with most things bike. Since then the gears gave been stripped  down to single-speed and more recently fixed, which has opened a whole other can of worms and apparently my wallet since I picked up a new track / fixed gear oriented frame.

Anyway blah blah, here's some pics!

I can't stress enough the benefits of rolling around by your own steam and I've all but forced my love of the single speed simplicity on Nicole who is also now sporting a hot-pepto colored fixed gear of her own. Pics to come!

design time

i'm showing a variety of stools at the ids west show that's on at canada place right now. i took my mom today to remind her what a super star designer i am.


some adoring fans/ future design stars

this dude couldn't keep his hands off them.

"we just cut the rubber ply for those two..."


no offense mom, but your photography needs work.
granted, the lighting in there was horrible.
here is just a better representation of what's happenin' with those if you haven't seen em. (nixed those ufo beams on the bottom!)



this one has acquired the nickname "steamy stooli" because it's so fucking cute.


it's just a working prototype my group and i threw together for an ergonomics project. designed for outdoor use, it would collect rainwater and then boil it inside, thus warming the concrete. that black thing is a steam spout.
imagine a full sized sofa at a bus stop, steaming in the rain. our main concept/ objective is to offer a warm place for all members of the community to relax in the public domain.
lenny participated in our user trials for compensation in baked goods.


since that project i've learned what an ecological terror cement is. i swear to always specify cement alternatives when using concrete in the future.
it's fucked up how most of my work that has been recognized or praised is totally stupid, morally wankerist or phony fashion garb. hopefully it's because i'm just figuring out what i feel is important to pursue in the design world and most of it doesn't come in the form of material objects you put on display.

*sigh*

oh, look at how nicely my old apartment is coming along.




just for sake of comparison, here's my old kitchen at one of it's absolute worsts, april 2006...

we knocked out the wall on the left while i was still living there. post-move - installed new counters, including a breakfast bar floating on the pony wall. of course, new appliances, went budget and just painted the cabinets. the back-splash is just pieces from ikea. moms did most of the work, with some minor consultancy. i can't be bothered to dig up pictures of the bathroom as this is getting depressing. the place is looking so fresh AFTER i've moved out.

anyway, enough advertising my interior and furniture design. i will only continue that stuff out of guilt for family and friends or for large sums of cash until i land a job doing something socially significant.

maybe i'll write about the run-in i had with a wanted criminal last night in my next post. it involves theif, assault and two policemen in our kitchen all while lenny was sick in bed. poor guy. that's the only reason i'm not hassling him about his lack of blog posts. he's got three drafts started... so maybe there's still hope for this collaborative interwebspace.

*double sigh*

just had to check, and it is a full moon. feelin it.