This week I presented at Cheltenham Elementary School’s Women in Science Fair as the first ever “computer” participant in the fair’s history. I decided to teach the children the basic design principles – C.R.A.P. – though I had to rearrange the letters – P.A.R.C – to take into consideration my K-5th grade audience. So we learned about Proximity, Alignment, Repetition and Contrast by assembling a poster about Toy City.
To prepare for the fair, I used stencils, spray paint and markers to create an interactive poster board. In the center, I put the pieces of information for the Toy City website on velcro so the children could move the information around and see the results spatially on the board.
The day began with the Kindergarteners who, we all agreed, were too young to grasp the “science” part of the fair. They did understand the mission given to them by their teachers: Get at least 6 sign-offs from the different tables indicating you visited. It probably wasn’t until the 3rd graders that the students really started to grasp the concepts of layout and design. I think this is a big take-away for anyone else out there keen on teaching design to younger children.
The typical conversation with each student went this way. After approaching, I would say:
Lindsay: Hi there, do you like to play with computers?
Student: YES!
Lindsay: What do you like to do on computers?
Student: Play gaa-a-ames!
Lindsay: Oh what kind of games?
Student: [INSERT SOME GAME I DON'T KNOW]
Lindsay: Well do you want to play a game today?
Student: Yes!
Lindsay: We’re going to design a website! Have you ever done that?
Student: <shakes head>
Lindsay: Well let’s design a website for ToyCity, the BEST Playground & Toy store in Philadelphia. Before we begin, lets organize the information into groups (prompt them to organize all the pieces on the table. pieces that were similar were also in the same color).
The groups of information were: Name of the Store, Taglines, Products & Availability. I walked them through each one, pointing out principles of alignment and repetition. I found Contrast was almost negligible in this exercise.
I think the highlight of the morning was the one 4th grader who, when asked what he likes to do most on the computer, answered enthusiastically, “Search facts on Wikipedia!” And when I asked him if he wanted to design a website, he cooed extra excitedly “I’ve always wanted to do that!” Unfortunately, his teacher chirped for all her students less than 20 seconds into the exercise.
While in Southern California this past week, I made my way over to Hennesy + Ingalls in Santa Monica at the behest of my friend Nate. The store is packed with books on creativity, architecture, graphic design and photography; basically it was amazing!
Today is my last full-time day at work. I’m leaving my job because I’m going…
…with my friend Lauren:
Here’s our itinerary…
If you feel like meeting us along the way let me know! And, if my flights look a little cooky to you, it’s because I got the entire ticket with airline miles from Continental’s One Pass Program; the miles were much easier to earn than I expected. The only leg I didn’t get on miles, that is not included in this itinerary snapshot, is the 3 week trip to South Africa for FIFA World Cup.
I’m going back to Philadelphia for the winter, to hibernate on my parent’s couch and to work on other projects that I’ve always wanted to devote more time and attention to, until I leave for this big and amazing trip of 2010. In the meantime, you can peruse my collection of travel pictures from previous treks.
Katie came to visit me in August 2009. She helped herself to my city of 4 years so I helped myself to her images. Through her lens, the city refreshes in my eyes.
Like any person in your life, a city cannot be all things to you through thick and thin. As much as I love this city, after 4 years, I’m looking to shake things up. I set sail very soon, stay tuned.
Produced by: Lindsay Tabas
Photos by: Katie Delaney
Song: Signs by Bloc Party (buy on iTunes)
More than 35 million people in our country are on food stamps – up 3 million just since January.
Living in Russian Hill, I’m just a stones throw away from the grocers lining the streets of Chinatown. I’m almost 100% positive most of my peers in this neighborhood and the other adjacent neighborhoods have never ventured in to these stores. To them it seems off putting, signs are in a foreign language, and the foods are exotic, even unidentifiable sometimes. To me though, Chinatown is my little secret. I love to cook a lot, and I could go to Whole Foods, but the spirit would dissipate once I checked my credit card bill after.
At Whole Foods you can get cherries for $7.99/lb, and in Chinatown you can get cherries for $0.99/lb. Even at Safeway, conventional apples are $1.99/lb, and in Chinatown they are $0.59/lb! Scallions? $0.39/each! Cilantro? $0.49/each! Eggplant? I bought some for $0.39/lb today. For the exchange in price, you get a cultural adventure. Some may argue that the quality is not as good, and I would agree. But not all fruits and vegetables need to be organic. And to be honest, I would rather eat some fruits and vegetables for cheap, rather than none at all because they are too expensive.
I have learned the laws of shopping in Chinatown over the past 3 years, and I will share some of them with you here:
Put your food on the scale as soon as the person in front of you is finished, else someone behind you will get there first.
Do not substitute an unidentified green leaf vegetable for spinach just because it looks like spinach; it won’t taste the same
Be prepared to see carcasses and single fishies lying dead in the freezer. If you don’t like it, don’t buy seafood and meat (I don’t).
Find the less busy stores – prices are $0.10/lb higher, but the food hasn’t been picked over.
Feel out the prices for the day. 1 store may have red peppers for $1.99/lb, another may have them for $1.29/lb.
Here are the foods I purchased today. I had a few recipes in mind while I was food shopping, and knew that I had some bulk foods to use at home which are not pictured here. I’m hoping my assumption that multiple recipes using similar ingredients will make my life easier will prove true.
Tonight I’m going to finish cooking for tomorrow. I’ll post the recipes and what I eat in tomorrow’s post.
What do you think?
60% of the clients San Francisco Food Bank served last year come from working households.
“I’ve always felt that a person’s intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.” -Abigail Adams
Our second First Lady was known for her prolific writing, and many beautiful quotes of hers have been pulled from her letters she use to write to her husband, President John Adams. Letter writing has become a lost art among my generation. We grew up writing letters to penpals and soldiers from the classroom, and letters to friends and family from summer camp. Even up until 2004, my friend Marla and I were trading letters while I was doing research at Texas A&M University and she was a counselor at a summer camp in New England. My grandmother use to write me beautiful letters, many of which I still have to this day. I remember the different note cards she would use, some with her name printed on them, and others with porcelain dolls. She loves letters so much that she made a copy of one I wrote her when I was 8 years old, and sent it to me; the letter, adorned with a caricature of Garfield eating a slice of pizza, is on my refrigerator. Her letters continued until she mastered e-mail five years ago.
When I reminded my grandmother that she use to write me, and how much I loved her letters, one day last year, to which she responded (by email) “I will retreat to my Abigail Adams mode.” A week later I received two letters from her. A few weeks later, I received an email that said “When I wrote on the computer I received notes from you and I’m missing some responses.” She pointed out the weakness of letter writing, to which email had the advantage. The latter was convenient and free, making a response easy and quick.
Over the years, I have been keeping a box of letters people have sent me, from Bar/Bat Mitzvah invitations 13 years ago, to wedding invitations and ridiculous post cards from Laura Lee’s travels this year. In that box I also keep note cards that I purchased 5 years ago, thinking I would be finished with them shortly thereafter. But then they invented the internet, email became ubiquitous, and we all began hyper-communicating with each other. Facebook came along and let us connect with all of our strong and loose connections culled over the years, enabling us to keep updated in one another’s lives. But, with all these tools, I find that the time between when I truly engage my friends, and when I speak to them again, grows larger and larger as the years pass. With all of these tools at our fingertips, we’ve somehow depersonalized our communication with each other to a few short messages, or a comment on eachother’s pictures.
Last night I opened my box of letters to figure out what I could do with these blank note cards. As I stared at them, I realized that with a fresh pack of stamps, and some free address labels, I could actually use them to write to some of my friends I hadn’t spoken to in a while. After all, snail mail has become such a novelty that it seems special, and an hour of my time to make several of my friends feel this way seemed well spent.
If you’ve forgotten how to write letters, I’ve outlined the steps below:
Step 1: Grab Some Notecards
Step 2: Find Those Free Address Labels the NPC Sent You
Step 3: Find or Buy Some Stamps
Step 4-6: Write Letters, Gather Friends' Addresses, Address Your Letters
Step 7: Find the Big Blue Box and Mail
The best part of this process has been the responses I’ve received after emailing my friends for their snail mail addresses. Being in my mid-twenties, the first question is “Tabas! Are you getting married?”
It’s storytime again, and this time, like so many others before, I was prodded to share this online. It was Friday, June 19th, and I had just flown to Washington DC from San Francisco for my friend Jess’s wedding the next day. Jess said she could pick me up at the airport, and I, in turn, said that I would pick up our friend Kenzie from the airport 4 hours later. Kenzie’s family lives outside the city, and her parents left the house unlocked and her car keys on the table. I spent the morning at their house, working remotely, and a little before Kenzie’s flight was to arrive, I grabbed her keys and got in the car. Being that I was so excited to drive her Mini, I jumped in the car and turned it on. Or tried to.
When I realized that her car was manual, I panicked…just a little bit. “Crap, crap, crap, how am I suppose to pick her up?” The brilliant person I am decided that everything is online, so instructions on how to drive a stick must be online (aside: this is where everyone says – tabas! you thought you could drive stick by reading about it online?). I ran back in the house and searched “How to Drive a Manual”. I read a few lines on About.com and felt sufficiently able to go on my way. Or at least start the car, try to reverse, and stall.
I go back in the house, read some more and then call my friend Katie who is at work. She tells me enough to get the car to the front of the development where I can get cell phone service and call her back. Katie gives me a couple pointers, I make it out of the development and on my way. Or so I thought.
Driving the two lane roads and coasting through my first right turn worked out alright until I had to get on Leesburg Pike – at least 4 if not 5 lanes on each side. The first light I get to, I stall. It turns green, I have to put the blinkers on, people behind me are visibly annoyed. I break a sweat. Second light; the same thing.
I turn into an abandoned parking lot and call Katie again. She tells me she has to work and can’t talk. I call my Dad. He picks up. I put him on speaker phone and he gives me our first father/daughter lesson as I drive around an abandoned bank parking lot. Park, reverse, forward, drive around the decrepit teller window. Repeat. He tells me he regrets not teaching me how to drive stick (there’s a first for everything!), and tells me some funny stories about my older sister’s steep learning curve. Being the supportive father that he is, he tells me if I’ve gotten 3.5 miles so far, I might as well go all the way to the airport. I think differently!
Finally Kenzie calls me to tell me she landed and I tell her the story – “Kenzie! I don’t know how to drive stick, my dad’s teaching me right now!” She thinks I said that my dad taught me once before, not just this moment and tells me to come pick her up. I repeat myself and when it finally clicks she says “Tabas! Why are you driving my car?? You knew it was a mini.”
“I really wanted to pick you up, I’m excited to see you ” I exclaimed! “But I didn’t know all mini’s were stick”. She proceeds to make me feel clueless; apparently all mini’s are manual, or were when she bought hers. We try to figure out if I should come get her, or if she should take a cab to where I am, or if I should attempt driving home. We pick option #3, and I get back on Leesburg Pike. Surprisingly, I made it all the way home without stalling once; I must have learned something.
Of course this became the story of the weekend at the wedding. That, and we were running so late to rehearsal dinner on Friday that we got dressed in a gas station bathroom.
Last night, I was hanging out at 21st Amendment before Lopez handed the baseball game to the Giants on behalf of the Phillies. A new friend says (naively) “You’re not a Steelers fan too, are you?”. No no, I’m from Philadelphia, not Pittsburgh. He says “Good, because I hate Shanghai Kelly’s when the Steeler’s are playing”, to which I respond “But you love the story of Shanghai Kelly, right?”. He looks at me blankly along with another friend of my mine. This makes me realize that I possess this little bit of knowledge about our city that I very rarely find other people know about. So I decided to share the story with them last night, and now with anyone who cares to learn more about the history of San Francisco.
Back in the day, before the gold rush of 1949, San Francisco existed primarily as a port city, with boats leaving for far off places like Shanghai, China to bring back goods to the Pacific Northwest for trade. Newcomers to the city quickly found jobs staffing these boats as deck hands and sailors alike. Tons of people were coming from near and far to the city, including boats that sailed from the New York, all the way around the southern tip of South America, because the Panama Canal wasn’t open yet, north to the California coast. One of those boats carried an Irish dude named Jim Kelly.
Kelly’s boat wasn’t the smartest, and when they sailed through the golden gate, they had no idea where San Francisco actually was; so they docked on Pelican Island, a.k.a The Rock, a.k.a. Alcatraz. When they “docked”, they tore apart most of the hull, and had to be rescued by more seasoned veterans of the bay. They dragged the boat to the Pacific pier and called it awash. Well, everyone did except for the enterprising Jim Kelly.
Jim Kelly sawed off the bow of the boat and opened the ship saloon. He served drinks out of that bow until he had enough money to open up his own hotel and bar, where new and old citizens of the city could congregate and rest their heads. New sailors were coming in everyday to the saloon, and heading off to far off lands for trade. Trade was the dominant business until news broke that there were “gold in them hills”. Suddenly it became very difficult to find sailors.
Being the ever enterprising man that he was, Kelly knew there was a service he could provide to captains of boats who now found themselves struggling to find sailors. So developed the ruthless practice of drugging naive newcomers to the city, and selling them off to boat captains. These poor men would wake up from their drugged daze by the time the boat was in Shanghai and have no other choice then to man the boat if they wanted to get back to San Francisco. This practice became known as ‘Shanghaing’, and the most ruthless of them all? Jim Kelly, who earned the name Shanghai Kelly.
The next time you’re at the Old Ship Saloon in the Jackson Square Historic District, or at Shanghai Kelly’s nestled between Russian and Nob Hill, you can know that both are an ode to a San Francisco legend.
I’m a huge fan of my grandparents, so I’ve sent them links to the taco crawl generator and, more recently, pictures of my foray into creating a cupcake smorgasbord buffet. Their official reviews are in. First, for the taco crawl generator:
Now I know why my computer could not retrieve all this information earlier today. it is now 12:30 a.m.and I know exactly where to go on a taco crawl. especially not to Chinatown.
And the cupcakes? Not so much:
A few comments : I’m not coming for dinner. Your hamburgers do not cut the mustard with me. I would rather go on a taco crawl. Some of the pictures are reminiscent of “still life” paintings in Museums. Artists like Chardin, Cezanne, Manet. You definitely are more to the Impressionist School. I thought your placement of the Tabasco added spice to the picture.
They are far funnier and more intelligent people than me. If I received a quarter of their humor and smarts, I’m lucky.
…I didn’t go in the Louvre, didn’t go to the top of Arc de Triomphe, nor did I check out the stain glass windows inside Notre Dame. These are all things I didn’t do in the 8 days I spent in Paris last week. But I did ride the Velibs!
More on those later!
Here’s my itinerary from Monday – Sunday:
Kenzie and Me at Jess's Wedding
Monday
Walked around the Luxembourg Gardens, to Montparnasse and returned on Rue de Renne in the morning
Uploaded my friend Jess’s wedding pictures to Flickr. Kenzie wouldnt have done it if I hadn’t!
Walked to the Louvre, rode on the ferris wheel and walked around the Tuilleries Garden.
Met Kenzie at Arc de Triomphe, wen to Harry’s New York Bar and then to vietnamese for dinner.
Tuesday
Went to the Latin Quarter market to buy fruits, veggies and cheese.
Did some accessories shopping
Got on my first velib! Biked to the Eiffel Tower and then the Trocadero, watched street dancers.
Biked to Centre du Pompidou and then back to Kenzie’s. Met her at the cafe and then made dinner, including my first tapenade!
Wednesday
Did some more shopping; St Germain is great for that.
Biked close to Montmartre and stopped at a Jewish deli on the way. Surprised they’re easier to find in Paris than San Francisco
Took the metro to Monmartre, walked to Sacre Coeur, started reading A Moveable Feast by Hemingway.
Descended, biked to Marais, got lost somewhere north of Bastille on the way
Ate some L’As du Falafel. Spoke Hebrew with a Druze employee
Met Kenzie at the Ferris Wheel, got drinks, rode the Ferris Wheel.
Walked along the Seine, found the Jefferson statue and then got some amazing gelato.
Me on the Ferris Wheel in Paris
Thursday
First day waking up before 10:30. Took a Fat Tire Bike Tour of Versailles.
Spoke some decent french trying to buy a cheese to eat with my smoked salmon
Biked the grounds, around the canal and then stopped for lunch
An Australian couple got engaged while we were there
Took a tour of the chateau, found Louis XIV’s mom to be horribly unattractive, and lucky to be royalty (else who would have paid attention to her?)
Met Kenzie for dinner in St. Germain
Friday
Slept really late
Went to Montmartre to check out the painting I “commissioned’. It was ugly, didn’t buy
Bartered for some awesome work, then the guy wouldn’t take credit card. Oh well
Headed back to St Germain, got Kenzie, and went to Musee D’Orsay for the last hour the employee was opened
Back in the day, before the gold rush of 1949, San Francisco existed primarily as a port city, with boats leaving for far off places like Shanghai, China to bring back goods to the Pacific Northwest for trade. Newcomers to the city quickly found jobs staffing these boats as deck hands and sailors alike. Tons of people were coming from near and far to the city, including boats that sailed from the New York, all the way around the southern tip of South America, because the Panama Canal wasn’t open yet, north to the California coast. One of those boats carried an Irish dude named Jim Kelly.
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