NPR Story now online

You can click here to read a bit about the story and to listen to the story that aired on NPR yesterday morning (7-29-10).

I sound like a huge dork on the radio. I like that they describe Dan as having "wavy chin-length brown hair and a stubbly beard." Made my day.

Poll One

How did you happen upon this blog?
1- Random Net searching
2- Member of the mural team
3- Heard about it through Abby
4- Read about it in a magazine/paper or heard about it on the radio
5- Other

On the Job: Day 34, 7-29

Pretty uneventful day. Got a second coat of the huge blue chunk up on seven that I had started yesterday. Micah and I are touching up our box again (the one with the hole after hole after hole) and that seems to be chugging along still.... Uh..... That's all really. I took tomorrow off to go home and celebrate my mom's birthday in St. Louis so I won't be documenting day 35 tomorrow, but I asked Lance to take some photos though so the day still gets documented. Our NPR story aired this morning- did anyone catch it? I'll post the link tomorrow when I find it. I think it's exciting that after our first radio interview aired we got our first votes for "read about the blog or heard about it on the net." Sweet- keep telling your friends about us and don't forget to check out the links to the other blogs our kids work on! Cheers. 

On the Job: Day 33, 7-28

Cha. I hate painting with blue. The seventh floor is DEFINITELY at least 10 degrees hotter. I know I've said that before....... but it's still true. The end :D

Blog Business Cards

So............. I was feeling a bit creatively starved today..... and bored.... and I... Well..... I made a business card for the blog. Might sound a bit crazy, but this way I can hand them out to my friends or family members that as me about the blog and they can have something to remember it by. I know, I'm crazy. I'm okay with that. Don't be jealous, if you're nice I might give you a few. :D

Condensed Universe, same color scheme as the original blog banner (Designed by Micah Barta for those of you that have forgotten). I printed them on a heavy stock paper but they're not as stiff as card stock. Didn't think I should go OVERboard with what they're printed on since most people would pitch them anyway.... though I did consider laminating them... hmmm.  The image that has the glare is more accurate color-wise, the others look pretty dark.

On the Job: Day 32, 7-27

NPR show didn't happen this morning. We got bumped again to either tomorrow (Wednesday) or the day after (Thursday), same time, same place, different day.

Micah and I finished our box today! As we were peeling off the LAST piece of tape however.... one tiny little spot started to bubble. I called Dan over and by the time he was through, half of our wall had peeled off. There is so much compound on the walls (which was used to smooth out the plaster) that the paint just peeled right off, almost in a solid sheet. It made me wince to watch. So now, instead of the box being finished today, we'll be lucky to have it done by Friday. It was sad.

Process book meeting #4, 7-26

So, we all met at Barnes and Noble for our Process Book Meeting last night. We looked through books and magazines to find inspiration for our layouts, color schemes, and possibly type face choices (though we seemed to have settled that matter already. Mo did well). I am working on color schemes and though I like the bold colors of the first image and the fox image below, the woman in sepia tones kind of spoke to me. The idea of having a set of muted colors with one pop of color seems pretty logical considering how saturated most of our photos will be (there are a TRUCK LOAD of colors in this mural). It was a good meeting, we have a lot to think about now.

The rest of us were not as bored as Lance.

On the Job: Day 31, 7-26

The peeling paint issue that had arisen in the box Micah and I have still been working on seems to have been averted for the time being (knock-on-wood for you suspicious types). We are hoping to finish the box up tomorrow which may or may not happen, it will be a close call. I managed to make it to floor 8 today to take pictures of the glass (photos below of course), as well as a few other random things.

Tomorrow (being Tuesday) morning you should tune into NPR (89.3 for those of you in KC) and check out the story they interviewed us for. They're playing the story at 5:30a, 730a, and 930a. Wednesday the story will be up on their website KCUR.org (in the archives). I'll post a tangible link Wednesday when I find it.

Sheesh- I used a lot of parentheses today. (Hoo. Yeah. What are they good for? Absolutely nothing. (Not true, but you get my point)). Uhm..... guess that's really all I know for today.

PBM: Tonight

Process book meeting tonight: We're meeting at Barnes and Noble on the plaza at 7 tonight to look through some existing books for ideas/inspiration. We will not be meeting on Friday since Micah and myself will be busy/out of town so I guess our next meeting will be held a week from today (Monday the 2nd I think). More details to follow.

Process book meeting #3, 7-22

Well... for the first half of our meeting we talked about owls... and then we talked about birds in general... but the owls took over again and we continued talking about them through one strawberry smoothie, a cup of soup and half a sandwich later...

No no, just kidding. We actually got some very important decisions made tonight which will really help us get cracking on this book. We assigned some jobs and discussed important specifications for the jobs. We're excited. Still. Again. Always.

On the Job: Day 30, 7-22

Uhm. Er. What?

Micah and I painted a lot today. I washed my brush out at least ten times, which is a new personal record.

Don't know if any of you knew this or not, but we have no running water inside of the building. We have three buckets that we fill with water every day that we use to wash our brushes in. Then, at the end of the day, we have to go dump the buckets, rinse them out, and finish washing the brushes outside with a hose in a pile of sand. We call it "going to the beach." It's hot like a beach, but generally noisier and smells pretty bad since it skirts the port-a-potties.

We are NOT working tomorrow, so day 31 will be on Monday and you probably won't get a post from me tomorrow. Note: I did say "probably."

We're having the third process book meeting tonight instead of tomorrow since we're not painting tomorrow. Guess I'll post those pics later too haha. Wow, I'm a blog-aholic. Oh well. By the way, we just hit 20 followers! Woo!

Have a good weekend. Cheers and all that jazz.

I know I spelled Dillinger wrong, it was a long day.

Dan had a delayed reaction with getting/sending out this email so we'll have to wait until tomorrow to get the online link to the radio bit.... Looks like that "probably" is already decided upon.

On the Job: Day 29, 7-21

I don't know how I keep going through days taking only one picture. There is always so much going on and I feel like I'm missing a lot of it! Anyway... We patched our blue spot today, but it peeled right back up. Issue Station indeed. We have one box up on the top floor that's finalized. And as of yesterday there was glass going up on the outside of the building! There will eventually be a HUGE glass wall on the back shell of the Kauffman Center and it's starting to go up. That's incredibly exciting for me. I didn't think we'd still be working there by the time it started going up! I promise to take more pictures tomorrow. Cheers.

Present Magazine: Part Three

Part three from Tom Ryan is a short pictorial, and it's now up online! Click here to give it a look-see!

On the Job: Day 28, 7-20

Micah and I started in our  new box today. We got some "It's a Boy! Blue" and "this is what key lime pie should look like" on the walls. As I was taking the tape down around the it's a boy, we had some major peeling issues yet again. Dan came and did some patch work, it's going to be a slow recovery for that spot. Hopefully that's our only rough spot on that wall though. Really, really- hopefully lol. I realized just wrote an entire narrative about our box and then had a random picture of Luke thrown into the mix down at the bottom there haha.... Oh well. While driving to the Kauffman Center this morning I was behind a guy in a pickup truck. Most men that have pickups can be spotted transporting a dog in the bed. This guy had two geese. Don't know what was up with that really. Made my day a bit happy.

On the Job: Day 27, 7-19

Today was rather eventful. While I was putting some final touches on The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Blueberry, I was getting up close and personal and a bug crawled out of the wall right in front of my face. I yelped and Micah had to kill it for me. Gross. THEN we had a guy from the KC Star come interview us, which was sweet. I'll post the link to the article as soon as he sends it to me. I finished the box I've been working in and started on the smallest box on that side of the stage on the bottom floor. I tapped of a shape that should be painted by the end of tomorrow. All good stuff. We'll be having our third process book meeting tonight... I'll post picture if I take any... Uhm... what else... Nothing I guess! Talk to you tomorrow :)