Wednesday, November 10, 2010

2010 Supermarket Street Sweep Spokecards

We were inspired by our World Championship Giants for this year's baseball card themed spokecard.

GATX

GATX

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

2010 Supermarket Street Sweep!

Oil your chains and mark your calendars! Saturday December 4, 2010 at Cupid's Span on the Embarcadero. There's also a new contest this year for fundraisers! www.firstgiving.com/sffoodbank/event/smsw

It's ON! SMSW 2010

The Polybot

It's not too smart, but it can carry really heavy things. Likes sets, items, and people. Dislikes rust, trolls, and dents. It'll help you with all sorts of things, but mostly just likes hanging out.












Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Monday, September 20, 2010

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Whatever happened here, looks like we missed it.


Thank you for your interest in my work but there are no more prints left for sale. To stay up to date with future sales, please sign up for my email list.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Beyond the Uncanny Valley

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.



A little old, but new to me. Long and boring but impressively hyper-realistic.

Math question: How many miles is 115 km? 750miles.

Wanting to know how many miles 115 km was, I did a search for "115 km miles" on Google and this page turned up. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_miles_is_115_km Quote from this page, "Math question: How many miles is 115 km? 750miles."

I can't believe this page exists on the internet. Actually I take that back, I do. Hooray for large ad networks "driving their business." They might want to do some fact-checking after they finish SEO-ing.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Nobay Mini Tour Day Four

Morning Day Four

After a few hours of the lake vent and my sleeping bag I was tired but ready to get up. Today my feet feel like swollen overripe tomatoes. It hurts to walk, but thankfully not to pedal, some naproxen with my shredded cardboard will fix me up. We finally get to see the camp and the park, it's quite a bit friendlier and a different scale in the light.

Four Up

We set out for Napa with purpose, it's going to be an epic day whether we realize it or not. After we are saved from some gnarly single-track by a married couple on full-suspension mountain bikes, we work our way along a bike path through the back of the park and out through a retirement community that had posted signs: BICYCLES PROHIBITED . We finally make our way onto the Sonoma Highway, past the picturesque homogeneity of a previous generation's vision for their America.

After lunch it's time for a little route discussion. Specifically a route that is covered in the Tour of California: Trinity Road. Our route over Trinity Road would require ~1,700 feet of climbing in about 3 miles. It looks like this on the Internet:



The grade is in excess of 12% throughout most of the first mile. It is a climb that done fully loaded requires a gear lower than the one I had, or perhaps it was mashing on my swollen tomatoes, but this climb would keep me off my feet for a week after I got back from the trip. Another lesson for my tour in June and a search for either different shoes or different pedals, my feet hurt like hell after this effort.

I'm the first to reach the top and run into a couple of college kids riding with their dad. They are impressed with my bike, especially dad, I'm proud, sore feet and all. I stake out a good position for shooting riders on the final feet of the climb. The descending family ride alerts Seth to my intentions and he takes off his helmet for his shot.

Helmets on the Ground

Helmets are thrown to the ground and beers are cracked. Yes beers — just a couple. And since he claimed he was heaviest, he felt he was also fastest on the descent. Heavy and logical he barrels down the steep winding road ahead of us.

Seth's Decending Line

I come up on his expert line down this hill to find him covered in foliage as if he was a sniper trying to blend in.

Post Crater Seth

Fortunately we can laugh this one off, the laughter is awkward and uncomfortable, just like when Seth weighed the last batch of homebrew. Still, we're thankful and a ton more cautious (well at least Seth) on the rest of the descent. It's refreshing riding Dry Creek in the Spring, green and lush, postcardesque.

Stopping for the Scenery

We're not yet into Napa proper, but we are all thankful to be off the mountain. Our dinner discussion is a battle of wills, and another night of camping quickly loses its luster under the threat of rain and another night on a permarest. A menagerie of mobile machinery fuels a search for a motel near Main. We decide to try our cheapest option with the highest rating, the old Jefferson Motel, now known as the Chardonnay Lodge.

The Funghi

Now I like a lodge just as much as the next guy, but one this cheap in Napa seems odd somehow. Turns out it was the best decision we made all trip. Close to town and with a roof. We decide to check out a couple local watering holes and a little of my roots. Turns out that my grandfather was the last merchant in Napa's Chinatown.

My Grandparents

Back at the lodge we watch TV like we've not seen it in months. Within minutes we are all sleeping through the heavy rain.

Nobay Mini Tour Day Three

Day Three starts with bacon, egg, potato, cheese, and avocado breakfast burritos. Unfortunately I haven't been able to have a movement, so I just stack it on top. It's going to be a big climb to get to our next stop and fresh with another handful of something resembling sleep, we are off.

Start of Day Three

The climb out of Nicasio Reservoir into Petaluma is much like getting out of Fairfax, perhaps not as long, but still a good one, perhaps even — fun. Buzzards circle over head swooping down to eat a deer caught in the headlights. You feel as if one of you could be next, especially the ones who complain about climbing.

We arrive at a half way point to Petaluma, a popular stop as it's literally the only thing in miles. As a captive audience I decide that feeling squirty has to stop here. The bathroom is not clean. I enter in desperation and leave without a couple layers of my fragile innocence. On the way out a rider on a road bike stops to ask if we'd seen his riding companion, an old man on a mountain bike. He is no where to be found, we worry on his behalf.

We finally finish the long decent into Petaluma and the center of town is bustling with activity, but this is not our destination. We ride through and out of town into an office park fit for a sitcom or the saddest job of your entire life in a cubicle in a colorless world that smells of new carpet and copy toner. But within this seemingly lifeless desert of single level business-park beige, lies the Lagunita's Brewing Company.

Beer Stop No. 1: Lagunitas

With mediocre food and a less than ideal location, the Lagunitas Brewing Company is still worth the visit. The beer garden and beer are the still main event, better even than having to drink warm Budwiser from a plastic cup in SoCha. Beers and food give us our calories for the ride to Santa Rosa and our next stop: the Russian River Brewing Company.

I can't say enough about Russian River. It has crept into my number one spot for brew pubs and local craft beer. Natalie and Vince are blessings to every beer drinking snob and otherwise in the bay area. Blind Pig and Consecration are my rewards for the day. Well half a Consecration, Jason and I learned important lessons about this particular brew some months ago.

Fruit and Sandals

The day is getting long and we still need to hit a grocery store before we get to Spring Lake. But it is already too late, the light is fading like a drunk at the bottom of a bottle. By the time we leave the grocery store dusk has all but passed. We ride into the park in the dark with no idea where to go. Like a scene out of Silent Hill, our tiny headlights poke just a few yards into the inky dark.

Locked and Loaded

We ride a good ways downhill in the dark until we come upon a deserted camping area that doesn't allow fires. We are not only lost, but have lost our virginity to this place; we're down a steep hill in the pitch black loaded with groceries and without a clue as to where the camp site is. The dark has a way of playing tricks on you. For one you can't really see how steep the hill you are climbing is which is good. But you also get a lot of moving shadows and the gradient between the brightest spot in front of you creates complete blindness in your periphery. I'm not typically terrified of the dark, but I was certain we should fear other people in this park at night.

Night Three TV

We manage to find the campsite and it wasn't bad. Not the great outdoors with several audible highways nearby and a pump venting in the lake every half hour, but clean, well kept, nice campsite hosts, and everything you need, including a coin-operated shower. I could not reduce myself to a shower that I had to feed like a parking meter, Seth, however, washed away his dignity for a dollar and a half.

I sleep with one eye open, my body full of grocery store rotisserie and ramen. I can't wait for Day Four.