ARI GOLD CELL PHONE

The first day of the year - My hair's still wet from the shower, seems appropriate. New, clean, bare. The sparkle around my neck was my Christmas present from Brian (lucky me!!!).

New year, new year... I used to write a biiig loooong journal entry every new year, recapping the last year, making my predictions for the next year... I don't think I'm going to get that done this year, but I thought maybe I'd record some of those thoughts here.

Last year was a crazy one for me - lots of changes, but overall it was really great. I met Brian toward the end of 2006, so 2007 was our first year together. Quite the roller coaster in many ways, but overall it was so so good. I'm so excited to see what this year will bring us!

I started playing with photography again early last year, and am still loving the creative learning process so much. I plan to keep up with '52 Weeks' this year, and work even more with portraits (self and otherwise) - I'm beginning to realize lighting has SO much to do with good portraits, so I plan to keep playing with that...

I attended my third Burning Man this year (I also attended in 2002 and 2005), and it was amazing and bizarre as usual. I won't be going back this year, but perhaps another time. I don't know what travel I'll wind up doing this year, beyond next week in Ixtapa (Mexico) with my aunt and sisters. There are broad dreams of something European (Italy? Greece?), but we're not yet sure how realistic that is.

There are home renovations planned - First a complete redo of the upstairs bathroom, a basement redo at some point, new floors, new toilets, new fixtures (faucets and lights), Window dressings, kitchen bits, the list goes on... There's no telling what we'll get to this year, beyond the upstairs bathroom. Whatever time and money allows, really.

Ooookay, end ramble. Have a great year, everyone! I hope it brings you all health and happiness!

The wood top grip to this cane is a a clasic retro looking robot... the Rocket Boy Bot! Spheroid head with hemisphere ears, he's done up with a coppery metallic body with gold and silver limbs and highlights, rocket pack on his back and heart button on his chest. He just blasted off and is trailing a red streak of fire behind him!

Made almost 100% from wood unless stated otherwise (I sometimes use tiny amounts of other things) I use paint and many finishes, often metallic, and make sure a lot of details shine through, often even the wood grain itself despite high tech themes. They maintain an often retro, sometimes even rustic look and feel to them, like an "olde worlde" toy or something (some more so than others ... I am told that surprisingly many do not even look like they are wood, but like metal or some manmade material... you can usually tell by the photos).

This top sculpture piece (the robot himself) of this creation is about 5 1/2" high, noting that about half of that height is overlapped with the cane part (remember, 2 1/2 centimeters to an inch).

The rod is made of transparent acrylic plexi in a clear but deep ruby red color about 1/2 inch in diameter; the cane's entire total length is about 37" tall. The bottom has a protective white plastic tip. Note that these are fashion accent canes of an artistic bent not for heavy, medical use (though I do make them quite sturdy!).

Made of Wood! Part of my "Retro Tech" line ... I build a lot of different things like ray guns, robots, rocket ships, flying saucers, other machines, telescopes and more in many different formats from full size prop replicas to miniatures, Christmas ornaments, jewelry, pendants, etc ... see my main site found through my profile which has many more photos and information. I do a lot of classic looks, but am expanding into more modern and a lot of steampunk, too!