Santa (and family) got me some really great gifts for Christmas. Here's the list:

Gran Turismo 5 video game, The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan book, Japanese Prints (Tashen edition) book, American Optics Original Pilot sunglasses, a light up Baltimore Ravens window decal, a nice minimal case for my iPhone 4s, a CAO Italia cigar and a bottle of sparkling wine!

All great gifts!

Here's a picture of me with some of the Christmas cards that I received from friends and family.

Here's a picture of my nephews with Santa Claus. I think it's a brilliant picture. I love the looks on everyone's faces and the letter to Santa on G's lap. It's a great picture deserving of attention.

This is my buddy Jimmy's business card. I absolutely love it. He did a great job with it.

Congratulations to Tony Stewart for winning the 2011 NASCAR Spring Cup Championship!

I've finally got a chance to mention a few things on my blog that I've been meaning to talk about.

My birthday was back in August. Giovanni painted me a picture. I took a picture of it. It's me with a Maker's Mark bottle in my hand. On the floor are empty Maker's Mark bottles. Even 3 1/2 year old Giovanni knows that I have a problem. Thanks for the dino poop!



A few other things. Over the summer on one of my many visits to Baltimore I discovered a new restaurant/bar. Alewife. They opened up in September of 2010. They boast a 40 tap bar with over 100 bottles. All really great stuff too. The place itself is gorgeous and the service is wonderful. The food is out of this world. I got the smoke burger and was BLOWN AWAY by it. Look at the menu on their site to find out more about it. Here's some pictures:



I was there a couple of weekends ago and once again had a great time. The burger this time around was stuffed with crab imperial. A very nice addition. During the last visit to Batimore I went to the Ravens game. GO RAVENS. To eat I went to the Blue Moon Cafe (had awesome Captain Crunch french toast) and went to the Paper Moon Diner. Also made my normal stop to my favorite liquor store, The Wine Source. Here's what I bought:

Dogfish Head - Punkin - 4 pack bottles
Duclaw - Mad Bishop - 6 pack bottles
Brewer's Art - Ozzy - 750ml bottle
Brewer's Art - Le Canard - 750ml bottle
Brewer's Art - Green Peppercorn Tripel - 750ml bottle

I know, mostly Baltimore beers, well, I was in Baltimore!

This past weekend I took my parents to the Mütter Museum in Philly. My good buddy Jen hooked us up with free passes! Thanks Jen! Afterwards we went to the Memphis Taproom.

Yes, everywhere I travel revolves around eating and drinking. I've been using the TV Food Maps app and finding all these great places. I can hardly wait for my next trip!

Steve Jobs single handily changed the world. He was a true innovator and changed the way everyone does everything forever! My friend Matt wrote this as his FB status: "Proud to have worked for the man that found a way to make sterile lifeless machines, industrial masterpieces capable of furthering the creation of art, communication and inspiration. Thanks Steve."



This was made on a Mac.

My latest video, Jim Murray: Client Liaison Senior Trainer, is now up on my website under the Artwork > Video section. I also redesigned how all of the videos are viewed. Be sure to check it out if you haven't already seen it.

I made a new video yesterday. It's for my buddy Jimmy. He gave a presentation to future clients/employers using a series of PowerPoint slides. The video has very little to do with the presentation but it's a great way for them to engage with Jimmy as well as leave with something memorable.



What do you think? It was tiring but also very enjoyable to make. I'll post it to my "artwork" page later this week with more info.

Made a visit to Canal's today. This will hold me off for a few weeks.

Newcastle Brown Ale - 6 pack bottles
Weyerbacher Tiny Imperial Stout - 750ml bottle
Southern Tier Pumking Ale - 650ml bottle
La Trappe Tripel - 750ml bottle
Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale - 4 pack bottles

I received a birthday card from Tiffany and Tommy. This is what they wrote on the inside:

There was an earthquake today. It was cool. The end.

With the temperatures soaring into the 90's this week I decided to cool off in my neighbor's pool. As I stepped into the pool I noticed something floating on the far end. I got out to take a closer look and found this guy:



As I fished him out of the pool I was surprised by how heavy he was and how little he actually smelled. He still had the skunk smell but nothing like what I would have imagined. After double bagging him I washed up and went back in the pool. No skunk is going to ruin my day!

A buddy of mine gave me this picture from 1944 of his wife as a child. The picture was missing pieces and what was there was in extremely poor condition. I cleaned the picture up and rebuilt what was missing. I also saw that the original location in the picture had paint chipped off all over the steps so I repainted the steps. I hope (s)he likes it.

Testing the blog and RSS feed. I noticed that images weren't displayed properly when importing my blog into other sites nor when viewing in the RSS feed. Then I noticed that links in the RSS feed weren't working properly, not viewing images and getting an error when clicking on the article link. Hopefully this will fix it. I've embedded an image in this article to ensure that it is posting properly.

A good buddy of mine makes some of the most delicious homemade pies. I wanted to create a logo for his pies that would really stand out. I've been inspired by industrial labels that are usually found on machines or machine parts. I think they are beautiful and often overlooked but when they are used in a different context then I think people are immediately drawn to them. In the case of my buddies pies, the taste alone isn't enough to bring notice too, mainly because it is such a huge market and there is so much competition, hopefully this logo will draw more attention to how great his pies are. What do you think of the logos?

Last week I had switched hosts for my website. If you link to my site or subscribe to the RSS feed update everything to point to www.beckinabox.com. Today I finally got around to fixing the "Photo Albums" section and added a bunch of photo albums, in case you didn't see them on Facebook. The blog is much easier to update now as well, something that really prevented me from making frequent posts. Some more minor changes and tweaks will coming in the next few weeks.

This is just a test. MobileMe may be shutting down their personal web servers so today I got some hosting from GoDaddy. I know, I should have done it sooner. The Apple way was just so damn easy. But now that I'm on a 'grown up' host I have plenty of more options. So this test post is to test php. Hope it worked.

It took me a while to figure out compression (still didn't) but I finally uploaded my latest video. You can find it in the Artwork > Video section or you can click HERE. For the most part I'm happy with it. It's a bit different from what I usually do. It was a spontaneous shoot so the camera work could have been better, I tried covering up the bad camera work with all the different layers that I have going on. I like how dark it is although I wish at certain times the light on my grandmother was a little better. Some shots look beautiful though. It was my first time using my Canon P&S camera, a PowerShot SD780. It shoots HD video on an SD card. I'm going to try to use this camera more so hopefully I will be uploading more videos, mostly music videos for Joseph Martin's music. Doing music videos will give me more freedom to experiment with this camera. Let me know what you think of the video and how I can improve on the future videos.

My buddy Joseph Martin wanted me to tell you about his new website The Umbrella Engine. You might know Joe as the composer for many of my videos. He has also assisted me in writing a few of my videos. I have a new video which should be on the site tomorrow some time. The new video is a music video to a track by Joseph Martin titled "A Moment of Frost". It's my first video in almost 3 years. It will be up tomorrow and I'll update the blog accordingly. Meanwhile, check out the Umbrella Engine and tell Joe I said hi!

Went to Wegman's Wine & Spirits yesterday, this is what I got:

Yards - Brawler Pugilist Style Ale - 6 pack bottles
Brooklyn - Lager - 6 pack bottles
Dogfish Head - Palo Santo Marron - 4 pack bottles
Chimay Red - 1 350ml bottle

Laird's Applejack - 1 bottle
Francis Ford Coppola's Claret - 2 bottles
Francis Ford Coppola's Rosso - 1 bottle

A little over a month ago I bought my first bicycle. I've ridden many bikes as a kid but this one is mine! For almost 2 years I've had my eyes on the bikes from Bowery Lane Bicycles. Not sure what took me so long to get one. They're incredible bikes, excellent design and handmade in NYC using American steel. I've been following them on Twitter and saw that they were heading to Philadelphia. I asked them if they would drop me off a bike while I was working at DeLorenzo's and they agreed. I offered them some pizza but unfortunately they arrived during the off hours (I still owe you guys). So, the 2 owners of the company, Mike and Patrick, hand delivered the bike to me at work. These guys are the coolest, we chatted for a bit and then they headed back to NYC.

Bowery Lane Bicycles offers 3 bikes, all single speed cruisers. I chose the Bronks Raw. I love the raw steel look and the visible welding plus it comes with a bell. I upgraded my seat to a Brooks B67 saddle. I got a Bern Macon bike helmet. I got the Beamer 3 headlight and the Superflash taillight both from Planet Bike. I also got the Kryptonite Series 2 KryptoLok U-Lock bicycle lock. I threw a cheap handlebar iPhone mount in there also, mainly for tracking my bike rides. I'm looking for a way to transport the bike in my little Honda Civic. Any suggestions? Here's a picture of my bike, that's my portable radio in the crate:



So, if you see me out on the roadways give me a friendly wave!

I had posted this picture of my desk space on Facebook recently asking what other people's desk spaces look like. What's yours look like?



To the left of my desk (not pictured, left of my headphones) is a small table that houses my scanner and other light gear. Above my desk is a shelf with my large format printer and negative/slide scanner.

Went to Wegman's Wine & Spirits today, this is what I got:

Yards - Brawler Pugilist Style Ale - 6 pack bottles
Weyerbacher - Double Simcoe IPA - 4 pack bottles
Tröegs - Hopback Amber Ale - 6 pack bottles
Smuttynose IPA - 6 pack bottles
Victory - Prima Pils - 6 pack bottles
Dogfish Head - Palo Santo Marron - 4 pack bottles
Brooklyn Local 2 - 1 750ml bottle

Happy New Year! 2010 was a great year and here's a few of my favorite things that were released in movies, television and music!

I haven't seen many new films this year. I still haven't seen Tron: Legacy which I have been wanting to see. My three favorites were Enter the Void, Black Swan and Toy Story 3. Enter the Void was fantastic, but it's not something I would recommend to everyone (anyone?). Visually and aurally amazing though. The opening credits were amongst the best all time. Black Swan was excellent although I feel like they could have pushed it more. Very good film but I just felt like there could have been more. Still, some scenes gave me chills. Toy Story 3 was just nearly perfect. Enough said. Some other films I really liked that were released this year were Life During Wartime, Kick-Ass, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Animal Kingdom, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Social Network.

As always I watch a whole lot of television. I don't really have a favorite this year but I'd like to say good by to one of my favorites which had it's final season this year, 24. 24 completed an excellent series on a great note. However, I have a feeling that he'll be back! Of course one of my favorite shows every year is Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. Funny, entertaining, educational, the show has everything! Some other TV shows that I loved this year were It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Parenthood (that pilot episode was amazing), Fringe, The Office, Breaking Bad, Dexter, Eastbound & Down and Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

A great year for new music from new bands and established ones. My favorite album of the year is "Teen Dream" by Beach House. Absolutely love it. Much more complex than their previous 2 albums. After that I would have to say "High Violet" by the National and "Odd Blood" by Yeasayer. 2 fantastic albums.

Some other great albums that were released in 2010, "Strange Weather, Isn't It?" by !!!, "Stridulum" by Zola Jesus, "Contra" by Vampire Weekend, "My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky" by Swans, oOoOO, "Returnal" by Oneohtrix Point Never, "Am I Real?" by Nite Jewel, "Tomorrow, In A Year" by The Knife, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" by Kanye West, "CMYK" by James Blake, "Love Remains" by How To Dress Well, "That We Can Play" by Games, "There Is Love In You" by Four Tet, "Dagger Paths" by Forest Swords, "Does It Look Like I'm Here?" by Emeralds, "Hide" by Foetus, "Baalstorm, Sing Omega" by Current 93, Crystal Castles, "Jet Set Siempre 1°" by Clive Tanaka y su orquestra, Broken Bells, "The Effective Discontent" by Brian McBride, Autre Ne Veut, "See Birds" by Balam Acab, "Before Today" by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti and "The Suburbs" by Arcade Fire. I also love the Tron: Legacy soundtrack by Daft Punk and the Social Network soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

According to my Last.Fm account. My top 5 most listened to artists of the year were; Arcade Fire (259 plays), Beach House (239 plays), Animal Collective (175 plays), The Knife (161 plays) and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (146 plays).

Have a happy and safe 2011.