IMP! I Make Pretty - The Blog of Justin B. Evans

Back in Business

Justin — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 01:06:05 +0000

Hey look! The blog is back online! Woo!

Channelling My Inner Gordon Freeman

Justin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 02:35:37 +0000

So, as has been the story of my life in 2010, I'm trying to buy a house. We finally found one about oh... a month ago, just before the first of home buyer two tax credit deadlines. Anyway, long story short, the appraiser came back with a small list of repairs we have to do in order for the house to get FHA approved, which would allow us to go to closing. A couple of the repairs we would need help with, so we asked a handyman my mom recommended to take care of them. The Sunday morning we agreed to meet, there was apparently a misunderstanding because he only came out to just take a look at the work. So we scheduled for everything to be done on Wednesday. I took the morning off work and just before we left to go to the house to meet him there, he calls saying he can't make it. Well, great. So we reschedule for Saturday (yesterday). We get there at 9, as we scheduled. 9:30 comes. I give the guy a call, no answer on his phone. Well, great x2. Rather than be angry and panic (Although some anger was indeed had; as Cat put it, "I hope for his sake he fell off a ladder or something"), we took charge and decided to tackle the repairs ourselves. One of these repairs involved replacing the terribly rotten wood under the front window. Frankly, we had no idea what we were doing, but we somehow managed to tear off the rotten wood via crowbar (I channeled by inner Gordon Freeman) and install some how chunks of wood.It could have been done a little cleaner, but hey, it's a lot better than it was before:

Expand!

The only repair we have left to do is replace one of the fascia boards on the roof, which we are incapable of doing because a) I can't extend my legs 40 feet, and b) it's on the roof. I've contacted several repair and handy-men so hopefully we can get it fixed early in the week so that we can close on Friday as scheduled.

And no, we never did hear from Javier.

Dreamless

Justin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 05:11:58 +0000

The last few days have been relatively dream-less (from a memory standpoint, at least). Wednesday and Thursday I don't remember anything. Friday night, after a long busy day at work, I dreamt, well, about work. The only difference being that I was in shorts and what I believe was a Team Fortress 2 related t-shirt. Unfortunately that's the most exciting detail I can remember. Finally, on Saturday night... I got nothin'. There doesn't appear to be much to take away from my most recent trend of dreams, holes and all. Nothing deeper seems to be creeping up besides reflecting current events (nostalgia and work). I am at least week away from completing a side project I've been working on for some friends of mine. I'll start trickling some info about this, pending approval from the owners of course. It's fun to work on something "new" once in a while, even if it does cut into old things I should be working on. Once that's done it's on to another quicky "freelance" project, and finally, when that's done, I can get back to working on BWISH. Oh, wait, I'm moving after that? Silly me. BWISH never gets updated. :(

A Pile of Dirt

Justin — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:38:48 +0000

Last night's dream was much less impressive and interesting. I was once again, alone, wandering some sort of townhouse community in the middle of the forest. Everything had a distinct renaissance festival look to them. I somehow ended up in one house where I ran into my friend Amiri who was with a realtor. He wasn't looking for a house but just a room. Not this room though. They moved on to another house and I continued wandering. I discovered on the outskirts of the town, deeper in the woods, about 300 yards or so, a giant pile of dirt. This caught my attention because... It was a big pile of dirt. In the middle of the forest. With nothing dug up. Incidentally, when I was 11 my family moved into a townhouse (Not in a forest) that was in a community still in its construction. What would eventually be a row of homes blocked a nice view of a pond and tree line was originally a giant pile of dirt. This was awesome when you were kid because you had what was basically a mountain (It was a big, 20 foot tall, 100 long pile of dirt). Throw in some nerf guns and it was perfect.

Dreams

Justin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:11:28 +0000

Something I haven't done in a long time is make an active effort to recall or record dreams. When I was younger I wrote down almost everything in a little journal by the bed, and it's interesting to go back and see the kind of imagination I had. Coincidentally, after reading the Wikipedia entry on lucid dreaming on yesterday, I had a pretty vivid last night. In an attempt to update this site more, I thought I could throw these dream logs on my blog (DLOG?!) in an attempt to record them, and perhaps do a little doodle to go along with them. So my dream last night involved going to look at a house (A stressful subject as the wife and I are all but done trying to buy a house, just waiting to close). This house had nothing to do with the one we're buying, in that this was a kind of spacious single family home on a hill (Ours is/will be a townhouse). Strange immediate details of the house:

It was dusty and dirty inside
It had a deck. INSIDE. In the living room. Covered by glass.
It had a strange sort of... electric wooden trellis. It was painted white and it needed heating oil to run.

I was being shown this house by a realtor person whome I've never met. Some very old woman. As we're going inside, an old old friend who I haven't spoken to in years is hanging out on the inside deck, playing with some flea-ridden cat. Strangely, my wife, Cat, was no where to be seen. I noticed this person and tried to avoid them thinking they somehow wouldn't notice me. I didn't do a good job acting nonchalant because they noticed me right away. They came up to me and asked me quite bluntly, "Did you stop being grumpy?" I nodded in agreement and to celebrate this supposed lack of grump, we got in the realtors car and drove to a Burger King (which happened to be the location where, in real life, I signed my first house contract offer with Cat and our realtor). This is when I woke up to one of my kittens punching my face for food.

Phoned In Update

Justin — Sun, 23 May 2010 04:05:29 +0000

I could write something here, but instead I'm just going to point to the latest BWISH news update to fill you in. Oh, and I made a bunch of little changes to this site. If you can't tell what they are, then I think we're going to have to break up.

Cameras to Go!

Justin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:51:05 +0000

So, I'm looking to get rid of some old camera equipment. Below is what I have and am looking at pretty much any offer before I send them off to eBay so they may be adopted. Fun Fact! The Minolta is what I used for all my black and white photography on the site. Oh, Fun Fact #2! Apparently a couple weeks ago I updated this site and didn't tell anyone! Oops! --- Large Lense Inside Lense Label: CCT 1:40 MC 0ff 934607 CCP AUTO ZOOM 80-200mm Around Lense Label: CPC 1A 55mm Photo Camera - Nikkormat FT 3858110 Normal: Photo With Leather Case Things: Photo Medium Lense NIKKOR-S Auto 1:14 f=50mm Nippon Kogaku Japan no. 887683 Attached (Screws on/off): 52mm Lense Protector Attachment Photo Small Lense - Vivitar Soligor Auto Tele Converter 2x to fit Nikon Photo Large Lense Auto Telephoto 135mm 1:2.8 No. 22902662 Photo Camera - Minolta SRT 201 Photo Small Lense Minolta MD 50mm 1:2 Japan 0 49mm Photo Medium Lense Minolta 135mm 1:35 0 49mm Photo Medium Lense Pro Automatic 1:2.8 f=28mm No. 686816 Photo Mini Flash Minolta Photoflash Unit 946 D Photo Giant Flash Vivitar 180 Electronic Flash 117V/60Hz 30VA Photo Broken Ugly Brown Case Photo Large Old Nikkormat Case Photo

The Third Antarctic Journeys

Justin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 11:06:00 +0000

Mike's new blog is up! It's actually been up for a couple weeks now but I've been making some final tweeks to the look and functionality of it. So check it out! He needs all the love and readers he can get! Next on the agenda, getting Project BM started with the enhanced BWISH...

Ooh urbany...

Justin — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 01:16:00 +0000

I submitted this photo to Wired as part of a little photo contest thing based on the theme of "Shadows". Everything was decided in early February but I just learned about it. I didn't win anything but I did get picked ninth in their list of photos that "deserved more attention". You can see the Wired list here. Just thought that was kinda neat!

I bet I could be more successful with my art if I applied myself s'more. It's just tough being productive when you work so hard in other areas, y'know?

The Second Antarctic Journeys

Justin — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:39:00 +0000

For Mike's birthday, I decided to do a redesign of his blog. I wanted to do something very different from my typical web design and utilize textures and do something more "collage-y". I think it turned out pretty well and even better, he liked it! I need to make some minor adjustments to the colors and "logo" but this is pretty much what's getting coded.

Even though it was a birthday present, maybe he'll pay me in the form of a script so I can get started on "Project Synth"... version 3? We need to start being more productive. I'd like to start that sometime in the next week or two (After TSAJ and the new BWISH are coded). You hear that Mike? I'm setting a deadline for March 27th for your script! The pressure is on!