Texas Bird's-Eye Views

The "Texas Bird's-Eye Views" is an exhibition from the Amon Carter Museum in Texas. It took place on February 18 - May 28, 2006. So, old news.. These bird's eye views prints were drawn in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It wasn't an easy process since there was nothing to based it on while on the ground. Basically, what the sites tells us is, to create the bird's eye view, the artist would draw from an idled hot air balloon in the air. These panoramic maps were usually over 3 feet wide. They usually were drawn by hand using a two point perspective, and later used these to make a three dimensional rendering. The exhibit presents many of these drawings. There is so much more details and additional information about the process under "Bird's-Eye Views: Brief History". It's actually an interesting material to read about.

These maps are all of Texas' towns. Galveston which is currently under Ike, is here also. The maps are categorized, so it should be easy for you to look up for a certain town. There are bios of eight artists. It is incredible knowing that they had to use special process to make these maps, without all the advantage that we have today. Furthermore, they had make them accurate.

Here the first map from the bottom is of Houston, and the one on the top is of Waco.

Texas Bird's-Eye Views
http://www.birdseyeviews.org/index.php

My Dog Is My Buddy Too!

Hey, 10 cool dog breed quizzes. You'll find the buddy site to be fun and full of information. There are 5 YouTube pet videos, dog name directory, daily dog news, celebs and presidential dogs, famous movie and tv dogs, veterinarian, dog health, nutrition, obedience, food poisoning. The list goes on and on.

Here is one quiz (you'll have to look it up to find the answer):

Which dog cannot bark?

a) Basenji
b) Irish Wolfhound
c) Sealyham Terrier
d) Rhodesian Ridge

The site is nice, but I have no idea who run it , or what their speciality is. It would have been nice to know if they are professionals. Also, I would have love to see information or stories about service dogs,

I have not checked their links directory. So I can't give feedback on their validity and safety.

My Buddy Dog
http://www.mybuddydog.com/index.htm

Blog - Saints and Spinners

The Saints and Spinners blog is about stories, songs and children's books. The children's books parodies is what caught my attention. There is a list on the right hand side under "Children's Books That Never Were". These are parodies of famous children books covers like Curious George (Furious George) and The Giving Tree (Misgiving Tree).

The books have funny titles, which made me laugh. Overall, this list is funny. The one cover that I liked the most is the "Rainbow Fish-Eyes". It was hilarious! That fish is gonna have a hard time with his eye exams. ;-)

Saints and Spinners
http://saintsandspinners.blogspot.com/

Blog - BibliOdyssey

If you like books, I think you'll enjoy this one (even if you don't like book, you might at least enjoy the images).

The description of this blog is: "Books-Illustrations-Science-History-Visual Material Obscura-Eclectic Bookart".

I enjoyed the posts. Don't forget to check out the archives as well. There are a lot weird illustrations. Check it out at:

BibliOdyssey
http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/

YouTube - RCA COLOR TELEVISION 1961

This commercial is for RCA COLOR TELEVISION 1961, and it basically explain how color tv works. It is about five minutes long, but the video quality is very good. It is an interesting clip. It also includes the culture at the time, so you get glimpse to that era.

Funny how it was a big thing back then, looking back it seem so primitive, and yet an important stage of technology. When we finally got a color TV in the late 70's, I was excited. Finally! We were so behind everybody else. No more black and white. Today, I do miss the old TV with the dial knobs and the rabbit antenna that always broke down. Boy, what am I thinking?!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nmCiMLlno4

Sewing Of The Past.

I admit, I don't have a thing for sewing. Knitting is no better. But this site actually interested me. Most of gallery anyway. Each company has different type of pages. Some have just articles; some lots of machine photos and ads. There are also a few toys that include he most expensive sewing toy (see clown above). Singer has the most pages and has the best stuff. So don't skip Singer. ;-)

International Sewing Machine Collectors' Society
http://www.ismacs.net/gallery.html

Blog - Johnson & Johnson (official)

The Kilmer House blog explains its "mission" in these words "....This blog is a way to tell some of the stories about the early days and history of Johnson & Johnson, and the people who worked here."

The blog is own by Johnson & Johnson. So it is an official blog by the company. They have a very long privacy policy and legal notice page. So I sure am not going to post any photos here. They have nice ones, oh well.

The page here is from the archives. I thought it's a good one to start with.

The Kilmer House Blog
http://www.kilmerhouse.com/?cat=4