goodbye 2010.

"Happiness only real when shared."

- Chris McCandless

"On a Wanderer's Grave, The World Doth Tread"

This the latest skateboard that I've made title "A Wanderer's Grave." The phrase was taken from a poem titled "The Sailor's Lament" and adapted to something a little more person.

I bought pre-pressed wood since I don't yet have a skateboard press, but I did all the cutting, shaping, smoothing, curving, finishing and designing of this board.
Check out the video I threw together of the process.



A [joel.witwer] original.

A little more about the process of painting on the graphic.
I first coat the board in three layers of poly urethane to seal off the wood and prevent paint from seeping down into it. I design the graphic itself on my computer, then print it out and trace it onto the board. All the paints I use are simple acrylics. Once the graphic is on the deck, I apply three more layers of poly urethane to seal in the graphic and keep the deck tight.

I love pretty much everything about Christmas, so I'm just going to keep Christmas videos coming all day!

I want a kid like this some day.

Christmas is tomorrow. Just sayin'

"Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like are but various fruits which succeed it."

- Henry David Thoreau in Walden

"We Americans are titillated by sex, obsessed by it, horrified by it. When an apparently healthy person, especially a healthy young man, elects to forgo the enticements of the flesh, it shocks us, and we leer. Suspicions are aroused."

- Jon Krakauer in Into the Wild

"Rochester is a dismal place with poor weather, I cannot imagine why anyone would willingly want to live there."

- Ansel Adams

Oh yeah, Ansel Adams? Well no one likes you much either ... oh wait ...

Merry Christmas!

You know it's bad when some of the most to-the-point speaking on Jesus and charity comes from a satire show.

Also, I check out the Bill O'Reilly references that Colbert referenced in the above clip, just to see if they were being taken out of context. Nope, it's as bad as it sound. Check it out for yourself

Keep Christ in Unemployment by Bill O'Reilly

"I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday and wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot, of our actual lives..."

- Jack Keroauc in On the Road

"A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul."

- Goethe

Always chase your penalty kicks.

This is just an incredible try! Look at his sense of presence on the field. He chips the ball, picks it and then instantly sidesteps the defender to make the try. A superb try.

I will recreate this one day

I know that this is old news on the interwebs, but how cool of an idea is this!? Use a high speed camera (210fps)and film out the window of a train arriving at a station! Everyone just looks 'stuck'.

Well this is concerning.

Evidently, I am a emotionally upset woman who is between 66 and 100 years old.

They do a text analysis on all your text posts and figure out the results. It's all very scientific!

Uh oh.

http://urlai.com/

simply brilliant.

absolutely gorgeous.

Travel lots, film it all.

I went crazy last night.

An energy burst forth from unknown sources. I was up, bowling through my house, using my feet as sleds on the cold, hard hill of my kitchen floor.
Back and forth I went.
To and fro I shuttled.
A grin dominated my face as I chuckled, thinking about how I must look to someone else. But there was no one else, just me, alone with my momentary insanity.
Maynard Roof was playing.

The Argentines collapse in defeat
The admiralty surveys, the remnants of the fleet
The ground beneath their feet is a nautically mapped sheet
It's thin as paper while it slips away from view

I love most everything about this video.

"I am an artist from Knoxville, TN and I have been changed by the love of God. I grew up in a Christian home my whole life but in high school I began to fall away from God. I found out that drugs and alcohol taste good and began to rebel from the Christian foundations of my childhood. It was in this rebellion that I became severely depressed to the point where I wanted to actually kill myself. So, I continued on this rebellion in high school until my junior year when I actually felt the presence of God for the first time. After that taste I could not go back to the rebellion of my former life. Ever since my taste of God and the love that he has continued to show me He has showed me who I really am.

God showed me that I was made to love on Him through the arts and music. When I got saved I began to create art and as I created art I have noticed that it brings me closer to Him and it allows God to minister to other people. It wasn't until I came to know God that I was able to tap into the artistic gifts that he had placed inside of me. God has given me the ability and the creativity to create art and enjoy Him through it. It has also given me the ability to show God to people in a unique way. I believe that God will encounter people through my art on the streets and in the galleries."

- Michael Aaron Williams

www.michaelaaronart.com

accurate?

simple and beautiful.

I am torn on how I feel about this.

Now this woman has a sense of humor