The day has come: my Parlor Sparrow!

At the start of 2013, I, trapped miles and miles from any semblance of decent skiing (see Sugar Mountain), began dreaming of something that seemed incredibly silly and farfetched: designing and skiing on my own pair of skis. Now, as 2013 draws to a close, I have to keep pinching myself as I sit and stare at the pair of purple/yellow Sparrow Parlor skis sitting in my SF apartment.  

These birds, my friends, are mine in a very special way -- in a months-long process, I brought them to virtual life in Photoshop, and the Parlor guys brought them to real life in their Boston workshop. Pretty surreal. They're so beautiful, and in all honesty, I'm kind of scared to ski on them for fear of ruining them! I am, after all, a fairly reckless skier. Ack!

I can't really recall many other occasions that caused me to feel much prouder than I am right now. Being able to create something like this has been so different from anything else I've done (which, granted, isn't much, but still), and it's just been ridiculously rewarding! AHHHH! Thank you Mark, Pete, and Jay at Parlor for taking on Sparrow and Heron -- it's been a true pleasure. And I haven't forgotten about you, Mary! 

If I see anyone with either of these babies (or any of the other awesome Parlor skis available) on the slopes, rest assured that I will chase you down and proceed to, how shall I say this gracefully... lose my shit! In the best way possible, of course. :)

Back to basics

Wow, what an anticlimactic ending to a months-long ordeal, haha. Whenever I spend a long time preparing for something important, I always expect jolts of pure, unbearable happiness and triumph to rip through my body when I'm done with that thing. Yeah, that rarely happens. At the end of my exam, I just felt beaten up. So I went shopping. :D

Now I have no responsibilities... minus all of the paperwork and administrative hoops I have to jump through to finally kick off my research. Ha! Exciting and dreadful. 

What will my life in SF look like from this point on...? Time to get crackin'!

"Basix"

Contours

Cartoon hearts are really lame, but playing around with their contours was actually a pretty interesting exercise. 

Cuuuuuurvy...

"Contours"

Goat sounds

I saw some goats today! That vacant stare coming from their plastic-looking eyeballs is so amusing. :) 

It seems that lately, goats have experienced a surge in popularity: the "Goats Yelling like Humans" video; Taylor Swift's "Trouble: Goat Edition" (this version, in my opinion, far exceeds the original in both quality and catchy-ness); that goat-meat burrito I ate the other day. Weird.

Anyway, here's my belated homage to these noisy, funny-looking, kinda smelly, and sometimes cute animals.

Q

"The Bleat"

Coupling

I've noticed several "His and Hers" style posts on various blogs that I follow, and I thought it might be fun to extend that idea to skis. These couple skis are a nod to our good friends Colette and Kevin, who got married this past weekend (congrats!), as well as our own upcoming year in SF! Excitement all around. 

xo,
Q

"Cross-country couple"

Seeing yellow

It was beautiful and sunny out today! Too bad I was mostly stuck inside a windowless workroom. The weak, yellow, and aggressively fake indoor lighting didn't help either. 

Thankfully, daylight savings means that I still get to glimpse the sun when I head on home. :) I can't wait for the weather to warm up!

-Q

"Sunburst"