Denver Sketch Crawl

Tomorrow, I’m starting the day with the Sunrise Stampede 10K. Buoyed by my recent success barefooting the Bolder Boulder, I’ve decided to keep up with this distance-running thing and maybe reach half-marathon stage by summer’s end.

After the race, I’ll be heading down to Denver to meet-up with the Denver Sketch Crawl. I’ve been looking forward to this ever since Journey Juju author and creativity coach Cynthia Morris announced the event back in early May.

[update: Cynthia's review of the Crawl]

– Race Results –

One of my favorite blogs which I religiously follow is that of Cynthia Morris at JourneyJuju.com and Original Impulse. Again, she inspires…

I have always found this last week of the year to be particularly exhilarating–and important. She does a great job of describing why while motivating me to stretch it even farther.  I think I’ll start with a quick set of runs across the length of the new ‘ice rink’ and then re-read Cynthia’s excellent little tome, Creative Toolkit for the Traveler while I fret about procrastination-delayed passport renewals.

In 2009, through creative exploration and expression, there will be unmatched Joy.

New category for my diary: ‘Must Experience‘.  Sort of along the lines of those ’1000 places to see before you die’ memes.  On my next visit to NYC, I must take time to drop in and see Stephen Gerberich. Turned on to him by a recent RocketBoom video, Steve reminds me of my childhood joy with 25-cent mechanical clocks purchased from the second-hand store and converted into wind-up spinning-gear toys consuming hours of my after school imagination. I love this guy!

Each year the mask form takes on a new shape. This year’s mask seems to come from a island culture: a bit of indigenous broad-nose African influence with a hint of Oompa Loompa. I think it is the best one yet.

I’m leaning toward a pedestal-mounted Escher-esque ”wrapped ribbon” concept executed in a beautiful piece of Honeycomb Calcite marble I acquired three years back.

Ever since reading Eric Drexler’s ground-breaking Engines of Creation over 20 years ago, I have yearned for its promise of at-home 3-dimensional object fabrication from a ‘vat’ of material. The molecular assembler is probably still a decade away but affordable 3D rapid prototyping (3D Printing) is just around the corner.

For some time now I’ve been following progress with the “RepRap Project” as well as the similar but less widely supported “Fab@Home Project“. While these are both immensely interesting — one day I would like to build one — for the time being a much more enticing new option has just surfaced: shapeways.com  (also, just found a similar but less sophisticated US-based site: Ponoko.com)

For as long as I can remember, 3-dimensional shaping and thinking have been a strong suit of mine. From early-childhood soap carving to current-era marble stone sculpture, I have imagined my 3-dimensional daydreams coming to life. Always at the top of the class in Engineering Drawing — I especially enjoyed solving hidden line problems in orthographic projections — my fascination with solid geometry and computer-aided 3D design continues to grow exponentially. Perhaps one day I will find myself more actively exercising these talents and putting them to good use.

I’ve looked on with envy as 3D designer Bathsheba creates beautiful mathematical objects with direct-metal printing. I could do this!  One day I would love to find my mathematical art on exhibit at one of the annual Bridges conference.

Ever since version 1.0, I’ve been an avid fan of Rhinocerous, one of the leading 3D modeling packages that is especially strong with non-uniform rational B-spline (NURB) design. Finding shapeways gives me the inspiration I needed to fire up Rhino and begin designing!

3D printing is here! More Design tools: Blender and PyTopMod

RepRap

Fab @ Home

Shapeways