wedding paraphernalia...

I've been married for 3 months now. It seems like that's about the amount of time it takes for the rush of planning, preparation, and celebration to settle into the pace where memories find their stride . I wouldn't have changed a thing about our wedding and pulling it all off wasn't even that tough (thanks to all the help we had)... but still I think remembering is a little more my speed.

Here are a few pieces of wedding paraphernalia, or maybe memorabilia, for anyone who might care to take a look.

Here's a book we made, you can see a preview or on the off chance you'd want to buy one, anyone can. It's 65 pages long, probably has around 100 or so photos in there. Everyone who has seen it has been impressed, so either it's nice or our families have low expectations.





And here's a link to a video Haley's friend Michael Schwartz made for us. He did a great job capturing the feel of the day. We were really happy with it.

Jason & Haley from Michael Schwartz on Vimeo.

Im Married...

Here's the mural my friend Allen painted for the ceremony / reception.

Mural Timelapse from Jason Harmon on Vimeo.

Everything was perfect for the wedding. Thanks to everyone who helped. I'll have to write a little more about it all a bit later.

food in philly...

I've had several conversations with people since moving to Philadelphia about... how should I put it... the amazing averageness of most of the food the city has to offer. I'll go ahead and say it... I've had way better cheesesteaks in Birmingham. Birmingham definitely had better bar-b-q and even has better Thai food. There's no cheap Mexican food here... not like the stuff I'm used to at least. I feel like most of the transplanted Philly residents I've talked to have similar feelings. The food here costs more than I like paying and for the most part, its just mediocre. That said... I've been pleasantly surprised over the past few months to find a shining few exceptions. They definitely aren't going to top anyone's "must do list" for tourists, but if you just want some really tasty food at a fair price you should check out these places.

1. Hands down my favorite restaurant in the city... Que Chula es Puebla. From the moment Haley and I were seated and immediately served their refried bead drizzled tortilla chips I was hooked. The building is totally unassuming. It stands all alone in an odd little intersection of Kinsington / Fishtown with a plowed down empty lot on one side, and what seem to be abandoned or nearly abandoned buildings on another with row houses and corner stores rounding out the other sides. Nothing out of the ordinary for North East Philly. But inside there's the nicest people cooking up the best authentic Mexican food I've ever had. Chorizo, chorizo, chorizo... so good in whatever form you order it. I haven't talked to anyone that's been disappointed by this place... or who haven't gone back repeatedly. So good.

2. Ekta. I don't know the truth of how this place started, but all the stories agree that somehow the owners have connections to and had a fallout with the owners of Tiffin. I don't really care honestly, Ekta's food is delicious, it's not too expensive and if you're smart you can order one entree, which is enough to split and sometimes even have leftovers from, some non and you're set for under $20. Awesome.

3. Pichanha. Gene told me that he'd found the Brazilian section of town while looking for supplies for a Brazilian style BBQ he and Laura were having at their house (which was also very tasty). I was excited to go check it out. As soon as we stepped into the little grocery store way up on Castor Ave it was like I was back in Viçosa. No one spoke english, Guaranana was stacked to the ceiling and the butcher sold unbelievable cuts of beef at around $3/lb and chicken hearts by the bucket full. After getting the supplies we headed to Pichanaha for dinner. There are plenty of fancy Brazilian steak houses around... the kind you pay $50 for an all you can eat night of waiters bringing piles of meat to you table, provided you have the green card up. If you want to go that route, you can at Pichanha though I'm almost certain you can do it without the $50 price tag. But the smarter way to go is to grab a plate and go down the side buffet and load up on traditional Brazilian sides... rice and beans that are so much better than any I'll ever be able to make... and at the end of the line tell the grill man what kind of meat you'd like to try, he'll give you the cuts you want then weigh your plate and you only pay for what you want. If you want more, just hop back in line. I had a pound and a half of food for $12... which was definitely all I could eat. This place is definitely not the easiest to get to, but is definitely worth the trip.


food from Pichanha

I love that none of the food that's becoming my favorite in Philadelphia is traditionally Philadelphian. Next on the list is Ethiopian food in West Philly and hand made perrogies in either Port Richmond or Manayunk.

one month from today...

I will be a married man. Whodathunkit.

AA Bondy concert... *edit*

SXSW on NPR... I really love AA Bondy, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but whatever.

Listen Here

Just saw that he'll be playing in my neighborhood Sept. 11th. Anyone want to go to the Kung Fu Necktie with me?

I'm not making this up...

RIP Nicole

Haley and I were walking around Fishtown / Kinsington this afternoon taking some photos when we stumbled across probably the oddest thing I've ever seen. We found a really beautiful abandoned building and while poking around the side of it Haley ran across an elaborate arrangement of stuffed animals.



She yelled for me to come up and take a look. I was so in awe. I was really excited at first... what a find! Who would do something like this? So weird.




Then as we were talking, trying to make sense of this it became obvious what we'd found. Haley caught on first, "Rest in Peace Nicole," I heard her say. Then as I backed up I saw what she was reading. I'd been standing on it... spraypainted on the ground.




We stayed there for probably 15 minutes, maybe more, taking pictures and just looking at it. The longer I looked and the closer I got to the toys the more sad I got. It's almost stupid to say, but all the toys looked so full of emotion. Their eyes were haunting. Its as if all of them were lamenting the, obviously untimely death of their former owner.



Even the postures of the stuffed toys seemed dramatic to me. They remind me of the depictions of Hell in renaissance paintings. This memorial is probably the strangest thing I've seen... definitely the strangest thing Haley and I have found together on our walks around the neighborhood that we love so much.

simulating...

I've been doing particle simulations for the past 2 weeks.
You probably don't want to know how many hours have gone into making this water.

a question for all...

should I buy this?? I love these things and Haley found this one in DC. Its a good deal for what it is, but is still pretty expensive. Thoughts?

technology sucks...

so since sunday night... my laptop's display, graphics card / logic board, to be more exact has died... my iPhone can no longer tell me how much battery life it has... comcast has cut my cable line (literally came to the house and cut the wire with a pair of wire cutters)

what have I done to anger the technology mongers of Philadelphia??

banksy is the man...

seriously... the... man.

thrift store find...

I found this while in Ardmore with Haley. I paid $8 for it.

Retail price for a used Sony HD radio tuner......... $179!!!

I saved $171.

this is almost home...

I'm all moved in... mostly unpacked... and sometime in September it will be home.

Here are some pics. More are on my flickr page.

Birmingham with Haley

All the important stuff.

it's true...

7 months ago I met the most incredible person I've ever met and two days ago, when I did my best to get a big question through a tightening throat and over a fat tongue, she cried and answered, "yes." Now we get to spend the rest of our lives together, and that's why I'm happier now than I ever thought I could be.

This is my fiancé, Haley, and me. I like us a lot.

tweeting...

I'm interested in making automated tweeting robots... either that or having things in the world of twitter effect real life objects... I'm still thinking. Anyway in beginning my search for how to make it work I've found some interesting stuff.

Plants. Here.
*Updated Here's the company and tutorial




Toilets. Here

note to self...

Never passive aggressively give clients terrible color choices in hopes of steering them toward your own choice. They inevitably will choose the grossest thing you put in front of them.

friends...

So I've been to Good Karma Cafe twice in the last few days with Haley, to visit our friend Carolyn who is the newest barista there (I think if you tell go in and tell her you read about this on my blog, you might just get a discount... but don't hold me to it.)

Anyway... both times I've gone, friends I haven't seen in a while stopped me to say hello. Sunday on my first trip to share some biscuits and strawberry jam with Carolyn (both home made... Haley is developing her own jam recipes) my friend Matt stopped and said hello. Then tonight while dropping by before going to another friend's show... Steve Speir bikes by and yells "Jason Harmon!!" He recognized my hair.

Then at the show, just a few minutes before we were ready to leave another new friend came by and sat down to talk for a few minutes.

I love being known. It feels so nice to go places and have people stop to talk to you. It happened all the time in Birmingham, I'd been there a while and felt like I knew everyone so I was never surprised... but here it feels so serendipitous. I like it.

Moving...

Found out this morning that I got the coolest house in Philly, probably the universe, to rent starting in the next month or so. I'll post pics as soon as I can take some.

Rob Chiu...

The Ronin (Chiu's site)

A few posts ago I mentioned seeing an interview with Rob Chiu. He's just updated his site with his new reel, and I can't stop watching it. I'm not sure why I like it so much, but I definitely do.

via Motionographer

Saul Bass...

At work we're doing a promo that, probably more than references, but I'll say references the work of Saul Bass. I've never really taken a close look at his stuff, because I've always been a little turned off by the work that "references" his. Anyway, his stuff is killer and I'm sort of excited to work on the promo.



Here's a video of Saul talking about film titles... its long so I didn't bother to embed it.
Bass on Titles

a year later...

So I realized that it was one year ago this weekend that I left Birmingham. Years go by a lot quicker than they used to.

I thought about trying to explain in this post a little of what I was feeling or a little of what led to me leaving, but honestly so much has changed in the last year, that I just don't care to dwell on those things. It's not that those things don't matter, they do, and they're a big part of what has brought me to this point. They're just not worth enumerating in a blog post.

God has been really gracious toward me over the last year. I didn't think I would like it here. I honestly don't think I expected to find much of a life here, but God has given me more life in Philadelphia than I would have dared to hope for. I don't use the word much, but I really am awed by what He's led me to here and I think those things are definitely worth enumerating. God's given me a church that I'm growing to love, and a community of people that are open to doing the same. I was on a membership retreat for the church this weekend, and had so much fun beginning to forge what I hope will be meaningful relationships with such beautiful new friends. God's given me a job that's challenging. This past couple of weeks I've had to bust my tail to try to create and concept my own ideas for commercials and promos... and my ideas and concepts have been bad. I've felt like I'm terrible at my job... but I don't feel defeated. I'm a little down for sure... but for the first time I sort of understand what all the athlete guys I hung around in college talked about when they said they needed their coach to "rub their noses in the dirt and tell them how much of a sissy they were." It's making me better. It's making me not settle for my first idea, or not to settle for an easy development of that idea. I'm learning. God's given me new friends, and hopefully if all goes well a new place to live that's so close to all of them, in a neighborhood that I've loved from my first trip there. And I'm not sure if this is what tops it all off or if it's the ingredient that's mixed in throughout and makes all those things so sweet, but either way I'm so grateful that God has given me an amazing relationship with Haley...who really is the coolest person I've ever known.

God has been unbelievably gracious toward me, and I've seen that most clearly this past year. I've taken to not writing much personal stuff on here... but I'd be amiss not to, at least this once, in light of unbelievable year God's given me.

a modest list...

I'm not big on lists, but I've had my thinking on them challenged as of late. Here's a modest list of 27 things I'd like to do before I turn 28. I'm a few months late to the game, so take it easy on me for some of the easy targets on there.

1. Eat dinner in the trolley at the Spaghetti Warehouse.
2. Shoot guns at the firing range across Spring Garden from the Spaghetti Warehouse.
3. Master one delicious Mexican dish and cook it often. (Quesadillas do not count)
4. Visit Richmond Virginia.
5. Write a semi-complex but functioning Processing sketch.
6. Eat Ethiopian food in West Philly with Haley.
7. Play guitar more.
8. Learn more about tea and cheese
9. Do something at work that I'm not embarrassed to tell people I did.
10. Explore places outside the city once a month.
11. Bake bread.
12. Ride my bike to work semi-regularly.
13. Do personal projects.
14. Get soft pretzels from the place on Washington.
15. Go to the site of the Philly World's Fair.
16. Spend some time at home with my family.
17. Watch a Woody Allen movie.
18. Read Catcher in the Rye.
19. Cook with Granny and Pop and get some of their recipes.
20. Grow a few vegetables.
21. Move to Fishtown.
22. Make some sweet beats in Reason.
23. Play outside more.
24. Wash my car. (It's a bigger deal that you might think.)
25. Make some stencils.
26. Pray more.
27. Take a long trip.

six cents

Haley and I determined that some things cost more for Home Depot to sell than they do for us to buy. Bolts for '05 VW Golf battery clamps are one such thing.

Bolt = $ 0.06
Estimated Hourly Wage of Home Depot employee = $10.00
Number of Employees needed to ring up one bolt = 2
Time Elapsed during said ringing up = roughly 3 minutes

so...

[(hourly wage / 60 *to get money earned per minute)] times the number of minutes worked) times the number of workers = cost to Home Depot in Man Hours of Selling one bolt

And if my math is right that brings Home Depot's cost to...

[($10.00 / 60) x 3] x 2 = $1.00.

I admit after doing the math that's a little disappointing. A dollar. But we only paid six one hundredths of that dollar... that is impressive.

inspiration...

I like making stuff... I rarely do it outside of work. Work typically takes it out of me, so the thought of sitting down and spending long hours at home in front of my computer typing code, pushing pixels or trying to make music is usually pretty unappealing. Especially when I consider all the other things I could do with said hours. But... recently I've found myself wanting that time at my computer... wanting to make something I can care about. I like that feeling.

I found this site today and have watched several of the interviews... Rob Chiu, Chris Hewitt and Mate Stienforth in particular.

Last night I went to dinner with a bunch of folks and heard a guy talk about a lot of semi-heady stuff. What's sticking out the most is heroism. How we need heroes so that our imaginations can be engaged; to cause us to aspire to be more tomorrow than we are today. I've got some new heros now, maybe thats why I feel more inspired.

alabama...

I'm going there at the end of May... I'll be in good company.

Can't wait to see everyone.

safari 4 beta...

I like it a lot so far. I'm a big fan of open source software and all, and am thankful for Mozilla and Firefox... but Apple just plain out gets it. They make stuff that functions really well and is just a pleasure to use.


Thumbnails for your top sites.



Coverflow view of your history



Developer bar so you can view source code.


and there's a really nice RSS reader built in. You can download it here.

holy crap...

this is the most amazing video I've seen in a long, long time. I've always loved when I get a crappy avi file or mp4 file and get to see that trippy kind of digital noise, especially when it gets "caught" on someone's face. These guys killed it here and I have no idea how the hell they did it. I'm amazed.

I found this video on Moving Brands blog. They do fantastic physical computing installations, check out their demo reel.

photos by Haley...

Haley does a lot of amazing things, taking pretty photos is one of them. She posted her photos from Peru on her Flickr page. They're pretty wonderful. You should look at them and have a better day because of it.

arduino class...

first Arduino test from Jason Harmon on Vimeo.

so I went to the Hactory and took a 6 hour seminar on Arduino, microcontrollers and electronics. so fun. here's what we made in class... I modified the code that we wrote in class a little to make this light blink and a little speaker make clicky noises. not too fancy I know, but I guess a guy has to start somewhere. today Haley and I went to Circle Thrift and found old toys with electronics in them. we gutted an Elmo and a baby Mickey Mouse and got all kinds of buttons and servo motors. I don't know what Im going to do with them yet... but its going to be entertaining.

so good!

I wish I were that clever.

sweet metal...

so its been a pretty metal kind of week for me. First I find out that the pastor of my new church digs metal... that's awesome. Then my buddy Allen points me to the new Lamb of God album... awesome. Then me unbelievable girlfriend gives me the gift of metal for Valentines day... she got me a photo book of a bunch of Norwegian black metal bands. (she said since it had blood on it, it would be an appropriate Valentines day gift... she rules.) THEN... talking to Allen again asking about other bands he tells me about Rosetta. Who I quickly find out are from Philly... and are playing the same night that I found out about them in Fishtown. And here's where it gets better. Jeremy a guy I work with told me a while back about a friend of his that does the visuals for Neurosis, then played with Red Sparowes, then started his own band called, A Storm of Light... which happens to be the band that Rosetta was opening for. Needless to say, awesome show. Here are some pics. I also had a killer time right before the show helping Haley sew a pillow... and as good as the show was I think I would have enjoyed continuing to sew even more.

if you really know me...

then you'll understand why this rules so much.

When Haley showed at my place for our dinner date, this is what her hands looked like.



She's pretty much my dream girl.

Here's a list comprising what we did while we were out for dinner.
1. Listened to metal music. (though I seriously doubt she liked it very much.)
2. HomeDepot to buy spray paint... which is what her hands were covered in.
3. Also at HomeDepot we found a "Clear Can" which is a revolutionary storage container with which we are creating a time capsule. (you can see its documentation in the corner of the pic.) So far the receipt for the time capsule, a business card from a Mexican restaurant, Chiclets and a penny are in it.
4. A.C. Moore for fabric dye and an impulse purchase of the February Martha Stewart Living magazine.
5. Listened to A.A. Bondy (which she may have liked a little more than Children of Bodom)
6. A lovely Mexican dinner... with complimentary Chiclets.

making stuff move...

I've wanted to know more about using my computer, and video, to control physical objects via microcontrollers for a long time now. This morning I signed up for a 6 hour seminar that should give me the basics on doing just that. I'm pretty excited about it.



It's through the Hacktory, which is amazing.

the american dollar (the band)...

I saw this video (made by my heroes at Onesize) a few weeks ago. After watching their new demo reel several times I thought I'd take another look at the video... which is great... but the music caught me this time. At work this morning I bought "A Memory Stream." Actually bought it from iTunes via my phone... crazy times we're living in. I've listened to it at least 3 times today, possibly 4.

Great music, beautiful video (which deserves to be seen in higher quality than youTube so check out Onesize.nl and while you're there check out their reel... they seriously do some of the best work going.

do these things happen to anyone else?

Bored today... thus the multiple posts. I met my buddy Matt (he's the guy on the cover of that magazine) for some coffee in Center City today. It was fairly nice out so I walked up. After hanging out / running errands with him for a few hours we parted ways at 15th and Chestnut. I decided I'd walk down 15th to Federal or so then cross over to get to my place. This seemingly random parting point for Matt and I turned into two very odd occurrences for me on my walk home.

#1. In front of McGlinchey's (Philly's #1 dive bar) I walk right pass a guy in a tuxedo. Full on tails and white bow tie. As I pass I think, "look at that guy, who in the world would be here wearing that." Then I realize that its my friend Ben. I was too far past him to yell, but I know for sure it was him. When I got home I sent him a message on facebook and I saw a status update from earlier to day, "Ben is all tuxedoed up." So weird.

#2. A girl I work with had her car "stolen" over the weekend. She'd parked her car around 13th and Pine and went back to get it and it was gone. There was a no parking sign so she thought it might have gotten towed. She called around and no one had it in their lot. The police were no help, they told her it had probably been stolen and there was basically nothing they were going to do about it. They did tell her that on occasion if people are parked in places with temporary no parking signs posted their cars are towed away and left on a different street... usually within a 3 to 4 block radius. She bought a new car this past Thursday I think, after she'd given up hope of finding her old Corrolla with a Ron Paul sticker on it. On 15th Street between Carpenter and Washington I found her Corrolla with a Ron Paul sticker on it. (almost a mile from where she'd parked) I called her an told her where it was... she was astounded... as was I.

Bizzarro-ville. Do these things happen to anyone else?? What are the chances?

good news... bad news...

This came up on my facebook page, thing, today.
I can't win.

sweet subway poster...

Saw these here. Awesome.

oh-ba-ma!!!

I'm an Obama man, don't misunderstand me... but I've been pretty uncomfortable with all the hoopla the last week. Giant concerts... dramatic orations by celebrities with full symphony accompaniment... multiple gallery exhibitions with massive bodies of work. It's just been a little odd. He's got to be the most well marked man (or perhaps most well marketed idea) that I'll see in my lifetime. And I suppose that's ok... he seems to be a man worth marketing.

I saw these today. (from fffound.com originally here) I like the absurdity of them. I don't want to come across cynical, I love what Obama has said he stands for and I'm hopeful that he really means it.