Super Starbucks

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So Starbucks has opened its latest experience, The Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room; a warehouse that is part roastery, part coffee house and part bar-restaurant. In Capitol Hill Seattle Starbucks is expanding its hold on the day from the place you get your morning coffee to the place you spend your evenings by offering fireside chairs and live music performances.
Today I stopped in to see what the hubbub was about. The place was noisy and filled with people. Brass pipes flew across the ceiling to copper roasters and the other side. The entire place smelled of coffee. It would have been a perfect place to sit down and relax for a few hours if there was any place to sit. As its still new and experimental it was packed so I found it much better to leave and go 50ft down the street to the quiet but tasty Victrola Coffee Roasters.

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Victrola Coffee

Indulging in Hobbies

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Today I held a race of man vs. machine. Myself against my 3D Printer. I started printing a hand shaped coat hook and started a Metal Earth model of a tarantula.2015-01-03 13.33.37 HDR

After a few hours though it was still neck and neck, but the printer managed to finish the hand a few minutes faster than I could assemble the laser cut model kit.

TinkerTopia

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Last weekend wandering around Tacoma I found a very special store specializing in the reuse of products. This what not a Good Will, Salvation Army or Thrift shop. This was a curated garbage dump where one can buy junk in bulk.

TinkerTopia, a store specializing in the reuse of objects many would call trash or junk to be reused for funky Art projects, props, and anything else that one can imagine. Most of the store is bulk bins of sorted miscellaneous things, 90’s DVDs, milk caps, CD cases, corks, slides, self sealing stem bolts, etc. But their larger and adder items are sold separate.

TinkerTopia caters to art students and small children but anyone can find some neat little trinket to take home. I found a Solid State wireless com system from the 1960s and a few vacuum tubes. Not sure what I’ll do with either but that’s the fun in tinkering.