Project 2, New Item

I struggled with what to write about for this project.

Late Monday afternoon at the pediatrician's office, I saw a brief news item in Wonder magazine for shoes specifically designed for a treadmill and an elliptical training machine. I loved the idea of these shoes. I recently joined a health club and the treadmill and elliptical are my favorite machines...O.K., I should clarify that I hate all forms of exercise and by extension all exercise machines. But, I liked the concept of a product-specific shoe, at least. There are volleyball shoes, football shoes, soccer shoes, so why not an exercise machine-specific shoe

The shoes are by asics and adidas. I checked the websites for both companies and found brief writeups about each. Hmmm... what I saw did not seem like much to go on. I checked out local sports shops for the shoes...Dick's Sporting Goods, Modell's. I wanted to see the shoe in person. No go on that front as well. The shoes were only available in downtown D.C. and Baltimore. No, not going to drive all the way to the city to check out a pair of shoes.

It may sound strange that I needed to see the shoe before writing about it, but I did not want to rely on website descriptions and other people's experiences of the shoe, especially since the information on the web was fairly brief. I wanted to write my own description of the product...experience it for myself if you will.

So, I moved from the shoe to Rockband. I love, love, love the idea of this software. We do not have it. I know my kids would love it.

Puzzle as Story

Another example of description is a puzzle I recently completed--all 1500 pieces. I have a tradition of starting a puzzle the day after Christmas. I get mildly obsessed about finishing it almost as soon as I start. My family does not share/understand my hobby.

The puzzle I completed reminds me of small town America in the 50s. I thought about the slower pace of life in a small town. No computers, wifi, cell phones, GPS in this town.

I had a hard time completing the road as the colors on the box did not match the colors on the actual puzzle pieces. Look at the reflection of the gas station sign and the blue car on the newly rained on street--you can see the water on the road from a recent rainstorm.

The author of the puzzle--I'm using the word author rather than artist as I believe he is telling a story about this town--uses various products to set the puzzle in time...Pepsi, John Deere, Budweiser, Good Year, to name just a few.

Description

One example of visual description is my voting sticker. I chose this image as it describes the act of voting. I saw people at Best Buy, Plaza Art Supplies, and my polling place with this sticker--we all had one thing in common...we voted. As a naturalized American citizen I take pride in being able to vote in any and all elections. I won't tell you who I voted for, but I will let you know I voted. The sticker is a simplistic, yet effective description of the voting process. The American flag symbolizes pride in our nation and what it stands for.