This is a paper cut of the streets of Minneapolis. I tried to make it as accurate as possible. Every street is there, every dead end, every park, every lake, everything within the city borders. It’s cut out of a single 14-by-24 inch piece of card stock.

Detail of paper cut of Minneapolis

I draw a bit. It gets a little obsess'y sometimes. Here's a gallery.

Well, everyone was trying it, so I had to see what all the excitement was about. I signed up for a stained glass class through community adult ed. (Man, is that a fabulous racket. It's cheep, it's broad, and it's easy. Go Community Ed!)

First, we all did little sun-catchers. Then small panels. Then we each picked patterns from a book for our final pieces. Being the overachiever (read: unrealistic under-estimator of time and ability) that I am, I came up with a custom design. To the instructor's credit, she tried to talk me out of it. Even more to her credit, she totally supported me once I decided to go for it - even letting me work in her studio after-hours to finish it in time.

It's far from perfect, but it looks pretty on the windowsill, so I'm happy.

I worked for a while in France some years ago. I was in the north, in Rheims, and when I had a few days off, I went to visit friends in Montélimar, in the south. The change in landscape between northern and southern France is remarkable. I took a bunch of photos on the train ride down. On the way back up, I turned some of those photos into a little chap book that I printed and sent to friends as an extended postcard.

Here are spreads from that book.

So on the side, I write audio software. Things like synthesizers and effects. They're plugins for a program called Reason. And people seem to like them. Here's where to buy them, and here's the "official" site for my products.

So I made a clock. It’s a pendulum clock made of clear acrylic and nested brass tubes. The design of the gear train, escapement mechanism, and housing is original. As such, I’m sure it’s not as refined as it could be. It’s missing things like a ratchet system. There’s a weight, but it’s not in the images. All that said, it does actually work (woot!!!) and is reasonably accurate. Of course, because it’s made out of clear acrylic, you have to be pretty close to it to actually read the time – which cracks me up to no end!

Here's a time lapse video of me carving another pumpkin. Happy Halloween!

So I made a movie. It's called Midwest Brigadoon. It's about the Minnesota State Fair. It was shot before, during, and after the 2010 Fair. It's about 25 minutes long, is non-narrated, and has a score written and performed by Leslie Ball. Here's the trailer.

If you're interested in more info on the film, check out the website for Midwest Brigadoon.

This year’s pumpkin. Took about two hours. Anyone know how to preserve something like this? (Although part of me wants to put this guy out of his misery as soon as possible. Any cool ideas for how to send him off?)

As much as I enjoyed it last time, it’s taken me a few years to find another December night available to try again. But 2009 appears to be the year. This is the simple, understated (I hope), design I came up with this year. It was just tricky enough with the compound-pitch roof to make it interesting to work out. It’ll live inside for the week. Then on New Year’s day, we’ll take it out to the chickens and let them go Godzilla all over it. Merry Christmas!

So I've made an iPhone app. It's meant for making radio stories, but can be used for music or sound design. Here's the official description:

Monle is a four track, non-linear audio editor for the iPhone and iPod touch. You can record new audio, import prerecorded audio, cut it up, rearrange it, add fades, set volumes, zoom in and out, mix everything down, share audio with other applications, and send the audio wherever you want.

More info at: MonleApp.com. It'll be available in the iTunes App store early April. Update: Monle has been purchased by NPR. That was a fun two years!