OH Warren – Elm Road Drive-In Theatre, originally uploaded by scottamus.

Oh wow, what an awesome sign spotted in Warren, Ohio. And those films aren’t more than a couple years old, so I’m hoping this sign is still there. Great colors, “modern” design. I’m just praying they realize how cool this sign is and the owners preserve this, even if the drive-in goes away.

Meet at Noon, at the Kiddy Pool at the North end of Greenlake in Seattle on Friday, January 1st, 2011!

Here are photos from the last few years. We’ll do it again this year, Saturday, January 1st, rain-or-shine. See you then!

What a great way to get the New Year off on the right foot.

Luckily, wigs do offer some insulation from hangovers and there’s no need to fret about bad bed-head.

Rain-or-shine, umbrella’s & kids ok. Meet at the Kiddy Pool on the North end of the Lake at noon. I’m pretty sure we’ll all be pretty easy to spot.

More details on Seattle Twist.

Separation of Church and State, originally uploaded by moe.syczlak.

Unusual and beautiful shot of the Christmas tree inside the rotunda in the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin.

Airstream Trailer: Home on the Range, originally uploaded by Eric Curry.

This is an absolutely stunning photo taken by Eric Curry. Unfortunately, this desert landscape is no more: just a few weeks after he took the photo, the desert was bulldozed and a nasty suburb arose in its place.

Glad someone is documenting these beautiful places before they disappear.

Googie Sign, originally uploaded by arbyreed.

Awesome Googie sign in front of an abandoned motel in Orem, Utah. Love the juxtapositon of the man-made sign and the snowy mountains in the background. We’re losing so many of this cool old signage, it’s important to document what’s left, even if it’s only an old photo.

Diabetes is a group of metabolic diseases in which a person has high blood sugar, either because the body does not produce enough insulin, or because cells do not respond to the insulin that is produced.

All forms of diabetes have been treatable since insulin became available in 1921, and the new book BREAKTHROUGH: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle by Thea Cooper and Arthur Ainsberg outlines this amazing discovery.

Breakthrough is based on the stranger-than-fiction true story of politics and personalities, and the unusual stories about diabetes just don’t go away.

What would you think of a single malt whisky made from the urine of diabetics? Creator James Gilpin doesn’t sell the stuff, but rather gives away bottles as a public health statement.

From the product page:

Sugar heavy urine excreted by diabetic patients is now being utilized for the fermentation of high-end single malt whisky for export. The Whisky market is growing faster then any other alcoholic beverage worldwide. With a prevalent genetic weakness being exposed in the northern hemisphere leading to a sharp rise in type two diabetes, economists have found a new exportable commodity to exploit and are keen to capitalize on this resource quickly.

Large amounts of sugar are excreted on a daily basis by type-two diabetic patients especially amongst the upper end of our aging population. As a result of this diabetic patients toilets often have unusual scale build up in the basin due and rapid mould growths as the sugar put into the system acts as nutrients for mould and bacteria growth. Is it plausible to suggest that we start utilizing our water purification systems in order to harvest the biological resources that our elderly already process in abundance?

And there are more unusual stories too.

The Gila monster would seem an unlikely source for a diabetes drug. But Dr. John Eng, MD, of the Bronx VA Medical Center in New York, thought otherwise. He had studied with a Nobel Prize winning mentor, Rosalyn Yalow, who had developed a technique for isolating unique animal hormones.

Expanding on her work, Eng studied guinea pigs and chinchillas. Then in the late 1980′s, he read research that found that reptile venom affected the pancreas.

Gila monster venom—found in its saliva—seemed especially potent, so he ordered some from the catalog of a Utah sepentarium. Using his new technique, he isolated a substance that stimulated the pancreas to produce insulin, the hormone that is reduced in diabetes. Eventually, he patented a synthetic version of the Gila monster compound, now known as Byetta.

Interested in the origins of synthetic insulin and want to know more of this history? Then you’ll want to get the new book BREAKTHROUGH: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle by Thea Cooper and Arthur Ainsberg published by St. Martin’s Press.

Elizabeth Hughes was the fourteen-year-old diabetic daughter of the U.S. Secretary of State when she became one of the first recipients of an experimental drug. Weighing a mere forty-five pounds, she was barely a staring skeleton when she was taken to Toronto in 1922 to meet Frederick Banting, the extremely unlikely discoverer of insulin. Three months later she left Toronto to begin a new life, a life in which her diabetic condition remained a closely held secret for nearly sixty years.

You can meet the author of BREAKTHROUGH, Thea Cooper, Tuesday, November 16 at 7pm at Third Place Books at 17171 Bothell Way NE in Lake Forest Park and learn more about this unusual tale.

Indooroopilly haunted house, originally uploaded by Leonard John Matthews.

This is an amazing old house, perfect for Halloween! The architecture is so interesting. I wonder what those turret rooms look like, if they’re round or more angular octagon’s on the inside. Even the rooftop looks like a witches hat!

Here’s a cool Flickr slide show of other “haunted houses” and strange and abandoned buildings around the world:

Santa’s Village, originally uploaded by Frank and Candi.

Awesome photo set of abandoned amusement parks around the U.S.

Mapping during 600 years anniversary of the astrological tower clock situated at Old Town Square in center of Prague.

The 600 Years from the macula on Vimeo.

Java Jive Teapot – Tacoma, Washington, originally uploaded by Vintage Roadside.

Who doesn’t love the Java Jive? Run down and derelict, but a great piece of roadside architecture. When I was growing up, there were live monkeys behind the bar and instead of a piano bar, they had an “organ bar”. It’s nasty, but it’s ours!

Continue down the road a bit on South Tacoma Boulevard for more great roadside attractions and vernacular architecture.

ENVISION : Step into the sensory box from SUPERBIEN on Vimeo.

Superbien

Box Office 1 Providence R.I., originally uploaded by BlueisCoool.

The Box Office is a three-story building made from 32 recycled steel shipping containers. The 10,000-square-foot building is targeted at start-up businesses and artists, with up to 12 office and studio spaces ranging from 640 square feet to 2,560 square feet, and is located in Providence, Rhode Island.

What a creative re-use of existing materials! My only concern would be insulation — would it be hot in summer? And maybe pretty cold in the winter unless they put batting or fiberglass insulation in the walls and then put up more metal or sheetrock.

August 16th will be the 33rd anniversary of Elvis’ death, and I thought what better way to celebrate “Weep Week” than to write about Elvis Real Estate.

Reno Fontana lives in one of two homes owned by Elvis when he died. The first, of course, is Graceland in Memphis. The second is the home in Palm Springs on Chino Canyon Road that Elvis and Priscilla bought on April 14, 1970.

When Reno and then wife Laura were looking for a bigger house, he was thumbing through real estate magazines on a Friday night when he saw the Chino Canyon home listed. He called at 9 a.m. on Saturday. “Is it really Elvis’ house?” he asked. Assured it was, he responded, “I’ll be right there, and I am buying it.” He bought the house sight unseen for $1,275,000.

“When we moved in, within a matter of hours on the first day people were stopping by taking pictures,” Fontana relates. “We were so thrilled to say, ‘Would you like to come in and see the house?”‘ The Fontanas don’t share most homeowners’ objection to having a lot of strangers coming into their house. “Even though we own the house, we like to think we are caretakers,” Reno says. “It’s open for Elvis fans.”

For the first few months, they invited people in for free. One day, after touring the home, a gentleman said, “It’s really gracious of you, but here’s $50.” After that, the Fontanas fully realized the value of what they had. Ninety percent of the furnishings belonged to Elvis. “You are not just seeing a house he used to live in. You are seeing a real part of his life,” Fontana says.

Because of his dedication to Elvis and Elvis fans, Fontana has researched and gotten confirmation from people who knew Elvis, and obtained written authentication whenever possible. He has a copy of the house title signed by Elvis and Priscilla Presley in 1970, when they bought it for $85,000. The Presleys were not the only famous owners. In 1960, McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc purchased the house; and in 1981, Frankie Valli bought it for $750,000. In 1986, Valli sold it to a Japanese corporation for $2.2 million. From then until the Fontanas purchased it, the home was open for a few weeks.

Elvis Chino Canyon Road on Zillow

The house on Chino Canyon Road is not the only piece of real estate that Elvis enjoyed in Palm Springs.

In 1967, Elvis and Priscilla were to be married by the pool in the backyard of the house. But the arrival of friends and family tipped off then-leading gossip columnist Rona Barrett (who also lived in the neighborhood) that a wedding was imminent. As the media descended upon the house, Elvis and Priscilla changed plans, deciding to get married in Vegas. In the middle of the night, they snuck into an alley behind the house, where a limo took them to Frank Sinatra’s learjet. They were married in the Aladdin Hotel.

The next day they returned to honeymoon in the Palm Springs house, which is how it got its nickname as the “Elvis Honeymoon House.”

Zillow’s estimate of Elvis’ Honeymoon House

A Luau Birthday Celebration at the

Official Bad Art Museum of Art

Wednesday, August 4th, 7:pm – Cafe Racer/OBAMA
5828 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle WA 98105

Cafe Racer specials featuring Food and Drink of the Islands

Music by The Ukadelics

Wednesday August 4th is the birthday of President Obama, and because Obama is a native of Honolulu, Hawaii, and because we at O.B.A.M.A. are looking for an excuse to have a party, and celebrate the Hawaiian and Tiki Culture, we’re having a Luau inspired party to celebrate OBAMA! Wear a muu-muu or Aloha shirt, have a fruity cocktail, get lei’d!

Oh My God! was the first Art Car created by artist and filmmaker Harrod Blank. At the age of 16, Blank became embarrassed by the blandness of his all-white Volkswagen and painted a rooster on the driver’s door. He never stopped decorating the car, which ultimately served as the springboard to his career in building Art Cars and documenting the Art Car movement.

Unusual Life is based here in Seattle, and we’re excited because Harrod Blank is bringing “Oh My God!” all the way from the Art Car World Museum in Douglas AZ to Seattle for the Art Car Blow Out. The film “Automorphosis” will play Thursday June 17th at the Northwest Film Forum in Seattle at 7 and 9 pm where “Oh My God!” and other art cars will be parked outside. Then he will attend the Seattle Art Car Blow Out from the 18th -20th at the Fremont Fair and the film will show again on the 21st at the Central Cinema at 7 pm. The filmmaker and other art car artists will be in attendance.

So if you live anywhere near Seattle, please stop by. Unusual Life will be in the Mighty Mighty Elvismobile, so stop by and say Hello!