In Portland we couldn’t find the Lavazza espresso beans we usually use and splurged on a few cans of Illy beans… Damn, that stuff is expensive, but you can taste the difference. There is nothing like the coffee in that silver can with the red top. Woke up in a hotel room in Spokane this morning and ran through the rain to the bus to make myself an espresso with the machine we carry. Ah!

After the Portland show I tried to figure what contributes to a great performance. I came up with these four elements (in no particular order):
– Venue and Acoustics
– Audience and Energy in the room
– Band and Energy between the musicians
– Food (and wine)
I think at least two of these four elements need to be there for a happening show.

In Portland there is Nike and I bought a pair of Nike Considered boots, which I think are very cool. The boot is very comfortable and looks great.

Our designers quietly agreed to high standards for Considered. And then they started talking.
As our chemists were finding ways to significantly reduce the toxic chemicals from rubber production, our designers upped the ante by setting another challenge: Why not see if we can fold some recycled rubber into the mix?
With our Reuse-A-Shoe program, we had already found ways to separate shoe components prior to recycling. We pushed on another front: Why not design for disassembly from the very outset?
When we were looking to reduce the use of adhesives, our designers considered a more radical approach: Can we avoid adhesives in the first place?

I also could not resist this shoe, which I found in black. Now I walk around the bus like it is a spaceship…

Regarding this earlier post: I did not walk to Mariana Chicet’s Straight from the Old Country, on 3rd Street in LA. last week. I decided to stick with Shiseido, remembering that once I ran out of another local product I was using in New Zealand and had to spend a day trying to find something to replace it with… in other words, I need a product that I can replace no matter what continent I am on and Shiseido a) works for my face and b) is available anywhere…

Hm, that reminds me of using web-based apps rather than local apps on my laptop. Eric Case turned me onto Backpack, which I think will become very useful for me. I started a new t-one 2005 project with Jon on Backpack. We will be able to share ideas, sounds, images and music files while we work on that project. I think it will also be very useful for designing a cover. Instead of sending updates back and forth and keeping track of the which version of the credits is the latest one, the latest version will simply be the one that is on (in?) my Backpack.