More practice photos from Cirque Stupendo

Justin. Larger. I think I'm gonna print this and put it up on my wall.




This is a fella named Kyle who does poi.








Justin juggling torches.


This is a friend of Mirri's named Leigh swinging torches.







Dear lord am I excited for Cirque Stupendo. Also, I feel very lucky that I have friends who do such awesome things.

As always, more and large versions at my flickr.

Usher, "Love in This Club" performed by the Showbiz Pizza Band

OMG!!!

Cirque Stupendo

Larger.

I'm so excited for this. Justin's gonna be juggling clubs and torches, breathing fire, hammering nails into his nose, and possibly doing a sword swallowing routine. I'm going to be taking pictures and making balloon animals for any kiddies that happen to show up. Also I designed the poster.

So everyone else is excited, here are some photos from practice last weekend.


Fire Poi








Hula


Juggling


Fire Eating

If you are in Iowa City, there is absolutely no reason that you should not come to this. It's only $5 and all proceeds go to flood relief.

Balloonenstein

So I'm not entirely sure how this started but I've spent the past two days making balloon animals. Justin wants me to do it for the crazy circus thing him and his juggling buddies are putting on at the Picador so I've been practicing. Me and Justin decided to take a bunch of crazy pictures with my newly created menagerie.


Swans.


This is an early version of a helicopter I designed myself. It's now slightly better.


This lion was hard as hell to make. I'm super proud of it.


Oliphants.


Rabbits.


Wiener. Hehehe.


Snail.


<3


Sssss!


Turtle. Poor turtle is slowly deflating as we speak. Balloon animals lead short but rich lives.


Poodle.


Friday totally popped this in the middle of the night. I found its corpse in the hallway.



Those are all from last night. Things I've learned to make since then include a cat, mouse, monkey, brontosaurus, a better helicopter, and a really kick-ass scorpion. I can also make a squirrel, bird, and two types of frogs but they're all kind of questionable.

I have the weirdest hobbies ever.

Indian Baby Dropping Ritual

Random Photo Update

So I've been toying around with my macro some more. Here are the results. Mind you, there's nothing spectacular, but interesting enough to post.


Friday's crazy golden cat eye


Slugs found in the backyard around midnight, lit by flashlight.







That was three different slugs. My sister (flashlight-pointer extraordinaire) and I actually found about five.


Also, we found this thing. I don't know what it is.

Lastly, I dyed my hair a night or two before I left for Arkansas. The results:


So yeah, predictably, the difference is pretty nonexistent except in very strong light. Then it has a reddish tinge to it. Anti-climactic much?

I-80 Detour

So I've been kept informed about the flooding vicariously through Justin and a few other IC people. The best thing I've heard is the closure of I-80 in various places. Justin was driving (on I-80) to his parents' house when he heard on the radio that the stretch of road he was on was being closed. He was literally one of the last people to cross I-80 before the detour was instated. If you haven't heard, due to all the flooding around I-80, the detour is insanely massive.

This is now how you get from Iowa City to the Quad Cities:



It went from a 1 hr trip to 6 hr 20 min. Oh my god.

This Post Brought To You By: INSOMNIA! Get it now!

So since I can't sleep I figured I might as well post cute pictures of little kids and babble inanely.

Here's a small preface about my family. When I say m family, I am generally referring to all the people on my mom's side of the family. We have all lived within 30 minutes of each other (umm...except me since I've moved to college and my great-grandmother who only recently moved away from San Francisco a few years ago) for almost as far as my memory goes back. I've made a diagram to explain the rest. Length from the top roughly approximates age as in the lower on the diagram, the later they were born.



Also, since we've got quite a few generations here, I'll clarify that when I refer to the grandkids, I am referring collectively to my generation.


This is the only photo I took at my great-grandmother's party. It's of my eldest cousin, Alina. She was really into her cashew chicken.


This is Levi. He is my cousin Tesha's son and lacking more precise terminology, I usually refer to him as my cousin nephew thingy.


Levi cooking what appears to be another pan for me. I'm sure it was delicious.


Levi with his guitar. He has more toys than than all of us grandkids combined. Seriously.




Levi is taking my picture. This time he even has the part with the lens facing outwards.




Levi likes to throw things though I think that's pretty common amongst kids his age.


Tesha hates it when I take pictures of her acting goofy for Levi. She says it makes her look like an idiot. I think it makes her look like a good mother.


Levi has a train.


LEVI SMASH!


Tickles!

So for a totally non sequitur, I'm going to end this by talking about my sister's cat, Friday. She's so weird. She is as close to a completely black cat as you can probably get. She has a couple white hairs in her ears and on her belly but it's not even enough to be considered spots. She doesn't bury her poo, she just leaves it sitting right there on top of the litter. She hardly ever meows. If you try to pet her, she grabs your hand and will lick you for five minutes. She's friendly but she doesn't seek people out (as opposed to Justin's cats who are total attention whores). She loves to hide under the sofa bed and attack your feet when you walk by. She's always careful to keep her claws in though. On the other hand, sometimes when you try to pet her, she will grab your hand with her claws and bite you so hard she breaks skin. But I get the distinct feeling it's still playful. Last time I was here, she hadn't been spayed yet and was in serious heat. She actually tried to hump my arm. It was pretty gross. So anyway, she's a weird cat.