Kidrobot Vs. Lil Wayne

So Miami did have some really cool things despite some of my dismal experiences…an unexpected surprise was a pass through the Kidrobot store. Since high fashion doesn’t appeal to me (this might change if I get a decent job later) and I had little interest in crappy souvenir stores or the retail stores we have in Atlanta, I didn’t know if the shopping in South Beach would have any appeal to me. But fear not techie toy loving dorks! Not only did the Mac store on Lincoln Ave have live DJs performing in a club-like atmosphere, but Kidrobot has a store just waiting for you on Miami Beach. Quirky fun toys and giant smoking rabbits! It was a wonderful atmosphere full of fun innovative little toys for adult kids.

Oddly enough, an entorage of very confident guys came in yelling and announcing something while I was browsing about. I asked a worker if I could have my picture taken with one of the giant smoking rabbits and the answer was no…not sure if it’s a store policy or because it turned out to be Lil Wayne shopping in the store. I hadn’t been paying attention to anyone else, as I was deep in my own paradise drooling over crazy little figurines. I didn’t realize who it was until I stepped out of the store and was met with fat lensed cameras and girls screaming “oh my god, it’s lil Wayne! If only I had gone into the store 5 minutes earlier! OMG!” I guess I was lucky to get in when I did? Oh well, that was my brush with the glitterati in South Beach.

I still would have rather had my picture taken with the giant smoking bunny.

Miami and fresh bum juice

I’m back….after a stressful trip to take care of some visa stuff for Pig…and I am incredibly tired.  Needless to say, I’ve never been so cold in Florida – I’ve been on Habitat for Humanity trips in January to Ft. Myers, and for goodness sake I was born in Boca Raton….so I never expected to see people walking around in winter coats during the end 0f March in Miami.

I do love cold weather, but when I travel to Florida with a bag of snorkeling gear, I have some expectations.  I lasted about 10 minutes on Key Biscayne and then hid on the shore under a long sleeve shirt, sweater, and towel shielding my head from the fierce wind that was pummeling me with painful bits of sand.  There were all of two people swimming in the choppy but tempting azure waters of South beach, so we just settled for walks there.

Maimi did indeed have many surprises for us beyond the crazy weather. Its Italian consulate annoyed us with random closing times, and downtown’s homeless issues were rather scary.  I’m used to Atlanta and its homeless crowd, but I guess I just know where to go and how to handle them?  Or our bums have southern hospitality?  These bums were mean!  It seemed downtown Miami was filled with half-constructed luxuriy high-rises and vacant lots filled with the homeless.  We relied cometplely on public transporation – no car and saved money by not using taxis – so we got a pretty good feel for the urban atmosphere.  On a brighter note, it is possible to get around Miami by public transport any time of day – something not so feasible with MARTA.  They have the free Metro Mover (this weird bus/monorail thing), which we called the bum express after being harassed countless times.  They have a pretty good bus system with some night routes, if you don’t mind the homeless brushing their hair on you, and it connects to their simple above ground subway, which connects to longer distance trains.

So Miami Beach is a lovely place, and thankfully there were average looking people in addition to the toned and large breasted.  Downtown, however, has an eerie emptiness.  We stayed at the Hilton, thanks to a $56/nite deal from Hotwire, and though the room was great, the outside was not.  Each morning, fresh bum juice awaited us on the sidewalks, and the walk to the buses had a lovely aroma.

Anyway, we aren’t calling this a vacation, because we had business to take care of, and the weather sucked terribly.  A real vacation would involve a hotel on Miami Beach district and a few taxi rides here and there. We had to spend a bunch of time inland in Coral Gables, so downtown was an ideal spot for this reason only.  Passing through Little Havana for cafecitos was the highlite of that part.

I have more adventures to post about, hopefully I’ll get to that before the quarter starts again on Monday.  I took plent of pictures on my little dinky camera, as I was too worried to take the big Nikon out until the last day. Anyway, a MARTA train never seemed so glamourous as it did after my flight in…

5th Quarter Damage

While most students like to post their actual work from the quarter, I always end up showing showing the resulting disaster that is left behind. So, to keep up with tradition, here’s what what it all looked like after 4 critiques and a quarter of hell.

At first, in the living room, not so bad…just some light trimming to get things mounted.

Then we move to my studio…ah,where the real action took place. Still not as bad as 4th quarter, but then again I didn’t tackle any huge paper mache projects this time around…

Old friend revisited

So, 5th quarter is over at last, and I can now partake in activities I couldn’t before. Like sleep. In a bed. Neither of those things really happened much lately. I was rendering things out on my laptop in the car on the way to my 4th crit, so things were that crazy. I now have to prepare for an internship competition as well, but that’s tranquil waters compared to the recent tsunami.

Anyway, more pics to come, but for now a bit of what I’ve been seeing…