Laura and I are on the move this week! We spent the last week with Laura's mom and stepdad at their cool house in Durham, Ontario — there is something completely different about Canada when you get away from the city centers. Toronto is not representative of Ontario, or even Canada really — it's like [...]
Read More canada, Dallas, Durham, GREAT, Illinois, Jim's Travels, JOL, Laura, Monday, Ontario, TexasHave you seen this video? If not, stop what you're doing right now and watch. Amazing. Tragic, but amazing. From the Youtube site of user Brian Luenser, who recorded and posted the video: This is the aftermath of a pretty brutal thunderstorm in Fort Worth Texas on May 10, 2011. It was taken from my [...]
Read More Brian Luenser, explosions!, Fort Worth, power transformer, Texas, transformerBack at the beginning of June I spent a day with Jeff Waful of Umphrey's McGee at House of Blues in Dallas. I helped load in, took some pics, shot some video, and generally just had a fantastic day. I got so much content from my day that I am just now getting to it. [...]
Read More Dallas, House of Blues, Jam Bands, Jefferson Waful, JimOnLight.com, Texas, Umphrey's McGee, VideoWhen I was down in Austin this year for the South-by-Southwest Interactive festival, we drove around looking at the city's old moon towers. The concept of these old towers is that they were used to augment street lighting, which was made of gas at the time (late 1800's), and could be employed when regular street [...]
Read More Austin, civil and infrastructure, moonlight towers, street light, TexasA while ago I wrote about the Solar Sunflowers that are installed on the rear end of a retail park in Austin. They're large beautiful structures that you can see on I-35 as you drive by a certain Home Depot. Here's the aerial view: I have always wanted to see these things up close and [...]
Read More Austin, Solar, solar installation, SunFlowers, TexasI was chilling with my wife and Josh Benton (you know, the guy who runs the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard) during the "Fray Cafe" event at the Red Eyed Fly at SXSW last weekend. In comes Adam DeWitt (@xedmada) to have a beer because I posted my status on GoWalla, and all of the [...]
Read More Adam DeWitt, Austin, Cameron Gordon, Craig Burross, High End Systems, light, lighting, Pure Volume, sxsw, TexasWhat's up, everybody? Throw your hands in the ay-aa if you're working long we-eeks: [waving] The major question: Who is going to be in Austin this weekend, who is going to be hanging out at SXSW, and what time are we getting together and what night?! It's hopefully gonna be a whirlwind weekend full of [...]
Read More 20x2, Austin, JimOnLight.com, sxsw, TexasAttention, JimOnLight.com readers! It's been brought to my attention that the Fox Network is looking for crew for a new TV pilot called "Midland." The Official Film Commission for the Greater DFW Region posted an ALL CREW call for resumes on their website. So, let me say this again: If you're in DFW and need [...]
Read More crew, Dallas, economy, film crew, Fox, JimOnLight.com Jobs, jobs, TexasI've not been to Austin a lot – a few times for working and visiting – but this is the kind of project I would want to see if I lived there. Meet the SunFlowers, a photovoltaic sculpture garden that collects solar energy and turns it into night time light: A blurb from Good Mag [...]
Read More Austin, Harries and Heder, LEED, Light Art, Mueller Development, public, PV, Solar, SunFlowers, TexasI am going to be making my way over to see this sooner than later now that we're back in Dallas. Cliff Garten, the architect/sculptor guy, was commissioned to provide the series of six LED towers, each over 36 feet high. From the city website: Towering 36 feet above the streetscape, the Avenue of Light [...]
Read More Cliff Garten, DFW, Fort Worth, Lancaster Avenue, LED, Texas