A decent chunk of time has passed since I last set foot on U.S. soil, and I still have a week and a half to go. I’ve taken thousands of pictures while working from the road and thought I’d share a few. I haven’t begun any of the post-processing to get things ready for printing, so these are all straight out of the camera. Most of these were taken with my new Tokina 11-16MM F/2.8, which I could not be happier with. It’s a beautiful wide angle lens.

Dublin, Ireland

Dublin, Ireland

Howth, Ireland

Paris, France

Paris, France

Paris, France

Paris, France (Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM)

Paris, France

London, UK

London, UK

If you’d like to see more, have a look at my flickr.

I need a headboard for my new bed… but I don’t have nearly enough time to make a proper one before I leave for vacation. Pressed with the need for a headboard and only a few days left to pack, I grabbed my trusty box cutter and went to work.

You’ll need a spare cardboard box or two for this project. Luckily the box that our vacuum cleaner came in was still sitting around. My cat was kind enough to help hold the cardboard down.

Next step: Tape!

A little bit of painter’s tape to help keep the headboard against the wall and not my head…

And there we have it. A lovely one-of-a-kind papercraft headboard. It’s definitely been a conversation piece for the past few days.

I got a lot of requests for more pictures of the desk in with everything set up. Unfortunately the pictures are going to be coming a bit later than I planned. I don’t have time to finish unpacking and setting everything up before I leave the country for 5 weeks. So, sometime in October, I’ll be posting the pictures of it with laptop and desktop, VESA arms and displays, and nary a cable in sight.

In the meantime, I do have one more post with a smaller project coming before I leave.

I built this desk last year and decided to give it an overhaul for my new place. It’s 8 feet long and nearly 2 feet deep. The first time around I had an older MacBookPro on it that ran so hot it split the top. It seemed like it was time to refinish the top and improve the base.

The initial build was a bit too high to comfortably work at. So the legs have been trimmed down and had adjustable feet attached. I also have an extreme distaste for cables and wires. They aren’t very aesthetically pleasing and they are just a nuisance to deal with. This time there are notches in the back to provide several access points to cables that will be stowed in a gutter hidden at the back of the desk.

I have no idea how old the legs are. They were found under my parents porch. They’re clearly hand made because they are not all exactly the same. I opted to cut off their damaged bits and make some simple block feet for them. The block feet have now been trimmed down a bit and are sporting adjustable feet.

The top is pocket-joined poplar for a tight, seamless surface. The poplar soaked in the stain really well (I used Zar’s Teak Wood Stain).

Here’s the finished product. That’s a 17” MacBook Pro (plugged in) for reference.

You have to kneel down to actually see any cords.

I’ll probably swap these pictures out for higher quality ones when I have a wider lens for my SLR