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wikitopx · 5 years

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Phoenix's warm, dry climate attracts sun-lovers and those looking to escape the snow and cold during the winter months.

The city offers abundant arts and cultural attractions, historic neighborhoods, as well as shopping, dining, and an outstanding selection of resorts and hotels. Many people come here simply to enjoy the outdoors. Golfing is one of the top things to do in Phoenix, but you'll also find opportunities for hiking, biking, and climbing.

1. Musical Instrument Museum

The Musical Instruments Museum is one of the largest of its kind in the world, with a collection of more than 6,800 instruments from almost 200 countries and territories. Housed in a spectacular building are five permanent galleries, including the Geographic Gallery; the Artists Gallery; the Mechanical Music Gallery; the STEM Gallery; and the Experience Gallery, where you can play some of the instruments. You can also see master craftsmen at work restoring instruments in the Conservation Lab.

The museum hosts special traveling exhibits and has a variety of Signature Events, showcasing instruments and live music from countries around the world. Catch a concert in the facility's 300-seat theater.

2. Taliesin West

Located in Scottsdale, Taliesin West was the winter home and architecture school of the celebrated architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Situated in the foothills of the McDowell Mountains, the facility is now the international headquarters of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the home of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.

Even if you have only the smallest interest in architecture, this is a worthwhile addition to your Phoenix itinerary. The tours offer detailed information on the architecture, the school, and Wright's life.

The buildings here were constructed out of native materials, such as rubblestone and redwood, and built entirely by Wright and his apprentices from 1937 to 1959. Taliesin is still a working school of architecture, and you will see students at work in the main drafting studio.

3. Desert Botanical Garden

Located in Papago Park, the Desert Botanical Garden is a beautiful complex that combines art and nature. Art installations dot the gardens, adding another dimension to this beautiful space.

The 140-acre complex is home to tens of thousands of plants, and displays examples of vegetation from deserts around the world. This is also a good place to spot hummingbirds and butterflies, with designated gardens designed to attract these creatures.

Extensive trails wind their way around the property, and visitors should plan on spending a significant amount of time walking. The spring is a particularly good time to visit as the plants come to life and bloom in an array of colors.

4. Heard Museum

The renowned Heard Museum in Phoenix, dating from 1929, is devoted to the art and culture of the Indian peoples of the Southwest, with displays of basketwork, pottery, jewelry, textiles, and a large collection of kachina dolls.

Outside, visitors can wander through the outdoor sculpture garden or take a garden tour of the museum. The museum also has a very pleasant outdoor café with courtyard seating and a menu that changes regularly and features special dishes to complement the featured exhibit.

5. Hiking Trails around Phoenix

Looking for something to do outdoors? A walk through the desert is always a pleasant way to spend a morning or a day, and Phoenix offers a full-range of hiking trails for all levels of hikers.

At one extreme, you'll find trails for the adventurous hikers, like the hike up Camelback Mountain, and at the other end of the spectrum are short, easy trails, perfect for birders and nature lovers. You'll find some of these at Papago Park or the Lost Dog Wash Trailhead. Somewhere in between these are Mormon Trail and Pinnacle Peak, which offer a bit of a challenge and elevation, along with beautiful views. For a more comprehensive look, see our list of the top hikes in the Phoenix area to plan your outing.

6. Old Town Scottsdale

Fun and quirky is a popular description of Old Town Scottsdale. Unique shops housed in buildings with Western-style covered walkways sell a variety of trinkets and other goods, primarily aimed at tourists. Just up the street from the kitschy shops are some of the city's finest galleries. Featuring spectacular work by famous artists, this is a fun place to window shop.

Old Town also has a good selection of restaurants, some with delightful patio seating, perfect for people watching. The area is easily walkable and can be found at the intersection of East Main Street and North Scottsdale Road. A fun way to tour the area and see the sites is on a two-hour Scottsdale Segway Tour. This will take you along the waterfront, past some of the historic sites, and through Old Town.

7. Hall of Flame Fire Museum

The Hall of Flame Fire Museum, which also sponsors the National Firefighting Hall of Heroes, is both a historical look at the profession and a tribute to firefighters who have been killed in the line of duty, or noted for their heroism. On display at the museum are exhibits dating back to 1725, including old fire engines and some very curious types of fire extinguishers. While most of the focus is on the history of firefighting in America, there are also exhibits from Europe and Japan, offering a more international perspective on the profession.

The National Firefighting Hall of Heroes displays the names of those killed since 1981. There is also a memorial to the firefighters and police officers killed at the World Trade Center in 2001.

8. Papago Park

Papago Park is a wonderful natural area right in the city, where you can enjoy hiking along nature trails, scrambling up the red rocks that dominate the park, cycling, and golfing. This is a popular place to come for a walk, particularly in the morning before the heat of the day.

The park has a multitude of trails, but the two most popular are the Elliot Ramada and the Double Butte Loop trail. Both these trails take you up to the weird rock outcroppings that are a key feature of the park. You can sometimes see wildlife, primarily rabbits but occasionally bighorn sheep.

Also located in Papago Park are the Phoenix Zoo and the Desert Botanical Garden.

9. Phoenix Art Museum

The Phoenix Art Museum has a collection covering the art of the European Renaissance and Baroque period, the Far East, and the American West. The museum also presents modern and contemporary works, fashion design, live performances, and films. The stunning exhibitions bring masterpieces from around the globe to your own backyard.

The classically progressive look of its 203,000-square-foot building is a work of art in itself. Designed by New York architects Tod Williams/Billie Tsien & Associates in the mid 1990s and expanded by them in 2006, it integrates art and architecture with the southwestern landscape.

10. Phoenix Zoo

While the Phoenix Zoo is home to more than 1,400 animals, including numerous endangered species, it's famed for its Sumatran tigers and orangutans. The four different trails leading through the facility are the Africa Trail, Tropics Trail, Arizona Trail, and Children's Trail. The zoo also offers children's programs and events, splash pads, and play areas.

Animal encounters are a special part of any visit and include the Monkey Village, where you walk in an open exhibit with monkeys swinging by. The Red Barn is a petting zoo with goats, sheep, and horses. Other experiences include the gentle giraffe encounter, Stingray Bay encounter, and the ever popular camel rides.

The zoo also has a 4D theater, which allows you to fully experience the film with water, smells, and wind effects. This is a great indoor option when the temperature outside is uncomfortably hot.

Here are a few more ideas for what to do in the area: Top 10 things to do in KC

From : https://wikitopx.com/travel/top-10-things-to-do-in-mesa-az-702276.html

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reneeosunshine · 5 years

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Recently Shutterfly.com asked to feature my geometric print DIY canvas wall art in their post {#25 on their list} of DIY home decor ideas. As you can imagine, I was thrilled they found and chose my art piece / blog post, and of course, within 2 minutes I granted permission to share it on their site! Little did I know while making this static geometric art; four years later I find myself entranced while creating dynamic fluid art!

Modern Master Bedroom Vignette with Chevron Chair, MOMA pendant lamp, Geometric Print DIY Canvas Wall Art and DIY Aluminum Lanterns #nofilter ashleycamber.com {Former Home, 2014}

Static, Modern Geometric Art on Canvas

Ever since I began my blog on 1/1/2013, the highest ranking blog post has been my geometric canvas wall art. One autumn day in 2014 while chatting with a couple crafty friends, I painstakingly taped off lines on the canvas. Most surprisingly, I devoted a literal 12 hours into creating this art piece from start to finish. After several craft dates prior, I know my friends could tell I was a hard-core perfectionist! Presumably I’d love the canvas wall art for years to come, so I wanted to get it just right. I applied layers upon layers of shimmery, acrylic paint and agonized over the tape removal and its’ remnants left behind. Later I decided those remnants just add character. 😉

Ya see, in my whole life–since grade school anyway–I’ve only painted a couple things on canvas. I thought, “What if it isn’t perfect?!” Now as a recovering perfectionist (since late 2018–ha!), I am working on embracing imperfections. In fact, I started recording podcasts of the same name–Embracing Imperfections–which focuses on creative makers letting go of perfection. More details on the podcast are yet to come.

…I started recording podcasts of the same name–Embracing Imperfections–which focuses on creative makers letting go of perfection. More details on the podcast are yet to come.

Ashley Camber

Dynamic, Fluid Art on Canvas

In the first week of 2019, I ventured into making fluid art on canvas and I’m. In. Love. There is something magical about the creation process and knowing you have limited control of the outcome. To me, fluid art has both ethereal, invisible beauty during creation and aesthetic beauty in the After effect. As in, it’s captivating to create and the outcome can be equally mesmerizing.

To me, fluid art has both ethereal, invisible beauty during creation and aesthetic beauty in the After effect. As in, it’s captivating to create and the outcome can be equally mesmerizing.

Ashley Camber

I’m so glad I became brave enough to ask my parents for my painting supplies for Christmas, otherwise I may never have picked up the materials to get started! My mom even guessed on the paint colors and I love them:

I Thought I Knew You

Agape at Agate

Washed Away

The Raging Sea

Pure, Intuitive Experimentation: My First Four Fluid Art Pieces

When I began my fluid art journey, I wanted to let my mind intuitively control my arm and the paint-pouring process. From 12 hours on my geometric art to pouring a maximum of maybe 10 minutes into my fluid art pieces, I believe I’ve made great progress! A fluid art piece could take as little as 3-5 minutes, but with these first pieces I was experimenting with using the remaining mixed liquescent paint before they congealed. Going forward I won’t be so stingy with the amount of paint I pour as that impedes the process and outcome. Even my style is fluidic as I learn from my choices as I go!

“Audible” in 2019

All of this is to say I am making change-ups here in my life space in January and I’m excited! When we were dating, my husband nicknamed me “Audible” because I’m always changing up things. I just brought this up at the dinner table tonight and it brought us smiles as he told our son. Let’s shake up 2019 together, shall we?!

At the top of this new year, I wish you a dynamic, fluid year with molten joy flowing your way. Since I see this as a year of transformation, I’ll be pumping out blog posts and Instagram Stories on ways to “get in the flow”, “go with the flow” and more! I hope you stay plastered here…hey, maybe I should try my hand at plaster on canvas sometime. Ha! #audible

P.S. There is only one other acrylic on canvas piece I can recall making since elementary school days. I made it in 2007 for my boyfriend–now husband–while he was on a multi-week business trip in Ensenada, Mexico. My hubs is super proud of his Italian ancestry and his home had a traditional feel. Inspired, I paused the TV screen on an episode of David Bromstad’s Color Splash on HGTV. After buying an art easel, paintbrush set, water bottle and paints, naturally I could create a Tuscan scene. LOL! Even though I don’t have it displayed, when I look at it in my craft room, it still brings me joy as I recall the care I put into it and the intent behind the gift. Feel free to share your own canvas painting story in the comments!

Rolling Hillside Aside Poppy Fields in Tuscany #nofilter

From realism to abstraction, I briefly outline my experience painting with acrylics on canvas. I love that fluid art gives me the freedom to explore while being "in the flow" + assign my own meaning to the piece as it's drying. Recently Shutterfly.com asked to feature my geometric print DIY canvas wall art in their post {#25 on their list} of DIY home decor ideas.

#Art #Barriers #Create #Decor #DIY #Embracing Imperfections #Home #Modern #Paint Technique #Zen

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archonreviews · 7 years

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The Archon’s Review of Hand of Fate

Hand of Fate is a rogue-lite/deckbuilding hybrid RPG made by Defiant Development. You play as a nondescript bearded adventurer who approaches a table, after passing through the thirteen gates at the end of the world. If that sounds impressive, know that it’s really not. At the table sits a hooded figure, the Dealer, who engages you in a children’s card game.The cards appear to represent your memories, and you must go through them in succession over the course of each run. At the end of a run, you encounter a member of the Dealer’s court, and every third such boss, you acquire a symbol of the Dealer’s power, although your own stakes in this are uncertain.

If the Hand of Fate’s genre description seemed like a word salad sammich, it kind of is. The adventure and combat encounters are, as mentioned, represented by cards in a deck, and your deck can be edited between each run. While this is a really interesting idea in concept, I managed to get through almost the entire game without editing my deck beyond the “recommended” cards. In addition, while it wants to be called a “roguelike”, I call the game a “rogue-lite” because death has zero consequences beyond needing to start that particular run over again. You even get to keep any new cards you earned over the course of your failed run. That said, the game is not always a cake-walk, and the later runs become quite difficult.

Also, if my opening paragraph seemed drastically shorter than usual, and also light on plot (especially after my previous two reviews), it’s because the game doesn’t really have a plot. It has a series of vignettes, carried out on different cards, some of which are chained together in a way that presents a sort of sidequest.

So, the game doesn’t really have a plot. What it does have is a personality. Enter the Dealer, the hooded figure in the splash image, and the game’s primary antagonist(?). The cards are but your own memories, and the members of his court are mere extensions of himself. You gain all knowledge of the stakes of the game, and also what the game entails from this enigmatic figure. He deals you the cards, he tells you how to play the game, his forces are the obstacles in your path, and it’s his artifacts you’re playing for. In a sense, it feels as though the Dealer is the game.

^(The Dealer deals, and the Gamer games, and the Reviewer uploads his reviews late)^

However, the Dealer may be the sassiest character I’ve met so far in my career (hah) as a game reviewer guy. He has a quip or a response for everything, and very often, he lets on a little more about the nature of the game you play, deepening your understanding all the more. Sometimes, however, he’s a massive douche, taunting you with weapon abilities you could have used before you died, despite the fact that you were in a trap room, and weapons wouldn’t have helped.

^(Motherfucking trap rooms^)

Speaking of dying, the game does not penalize you very much at all. The worst that happens to you is that you have to sit through a few clicks worth of menus and screens. I didn’t actually notice how cheap death was until near the end of the game. At that point, you will die a lot. Often to rats. Fucking rats. In fact, the Dealer will sometimes lampshade the apparent irrelevance of death, asking if it’s even possible to really lose if you just keep trying.

In fact, while the bosses were the hardest parts of the early game, after the first six bosses or so, it was getting to the boss at all that was the hardest part. Rats are definitely overpowered. I think I died to rats more often than to any other enemy in the game. This was especially frustrating during the final run of the game, wherein I only managed to get to the boss once, only to die and never get to him again. I ended up getting so frustrated that I had to cool off with some Minecraft and Age of Empires 2, each of which feature frustration via explosion death and pathfinding terribleness, respectively. See, it’s not about mitigating frustration, it’s about switching the target of your frustration so it doesn’t fester.

^(Another death to add to the pile. What is this, Dark Souls??? Actually, it’s much easier, I just got hungry.)^

Anyhoo, I’ve spent the first half of the review vacillating between being neutral on the game, and dissing it the way certain musical artists might diss their exes. But here’s the part where I praise the game, because there’s genuinely a lot to like about HoF.

First off, it really does feel like you’re playing a real card game. More than once, I found myself wondering if there was a physical version of this game I could play with my 2-3 friends somehow. This plays into the personality the game infuses the Dealer with, and presents the illusion that HoF isn’t just a one-player game with a peculiar conceit, but that there’s an opponent, someone to face off against who isn’t just an AI, and that the cards actually mean something besides being stand-ins for normal RPG encounters. Each enemy encounter is characterized by either an “# of [Suit]“ or by a face card. This also helps significantly with the card game aesthetic, as it feels like the Dealer is playing with cards that anyone could buy, but have been enchanted somehow. It’s not your father’s Yu-Gi-Oh!, that’s for sure.

^(The board. You get way more cards than this in the later stages.)^

Second on, the combat is actually super fun. It’s a very fluid dodge-counter-combo combat system, where you succeed by countering each enemy’s attack as it comes, and reflecting missiles as the enemies fling them so that you can dish out counter attacks and keep your combo up. I personally enjoyed it quite a bit. The phrase “simple yet elegant”, springs to mind like an item in Zelda springs from a chest.

^(Battle in motion. Also, that lava golem is fiiiiine.)^

The way non-combat challenges work, except in the case of the infamous trap room, is that you’re given a selection of four cards, each with a degree of success ranging from “Hug Failure” to “Huge Success”. Different challenges can have more than one copy of a card in the four. The cards are then shuffled around, and then you pick one. Depending on which one you pick, you’ll either get fucked over utterly, or you’ll get something awesome. When I was first introduced to this mechanic, I was ready to lambaste the game for an apparently random element, but as I played longer, I realized that you can actually see which positions the cards go in, and react accordingly. I even managed to score a few of what I would call “Kwisatz Haderach” moments when the challenges got too fast for me to see the cards but I got it right anyway. Getting the right card, knowing that you actually managed to track the cards, is a greatly satisfying feeling, specifically because it isn’t randomized. Because you actually have to exercise your ability to track moving objects, it comes off as an actual challenge, as opposed to the game telling to go fuck yourself every so often.

The art for each card is fairly beautiful, as are the graphics in combat encounters. Although the bosses kinda just look like beefier versions of the same enemy; I feel like they could have been more interestingly designed. Also, what is the deal with Queen bosses and totems? It seems like every Queen boss has a totem.

I didn’t use the deckbuilding element very much, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an interesting idea! It reminds me a teensy bit of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, wherein you collect persistent cards and eventually phase the weaker ones out in favor of stronger ones. In a similar way, you’ll be phasing out equipment and encounter cards for stronger or more advantageous ones.

One last tiny nittypicky, (in a “Yahtzee” Croshaw voice) without wishing to spoil, the ending boss fight was disappointing. I actually predicted exactly what it would be, and then discarded that expectation in favor of a more interesting idea. I suppose it’s partially my fault; if I had stuck with the suckier expectation, I wouldn’t have been as disappointed. Oh wait! I have one more: there doesn’t seem to be any invincibility frames when you dodge-roll. This means that you have to be dodging away from an enemy attack, and it has to be pretty precise for it to work. I’m just used to games that let you fudge that a little, like Dark Souls, or some fighting games.

Në përfundim, Hand of Fate is definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of deckbuilding games, rogue-lites, and nice combat systems. I probably won’t be playing it for much longer; I might try another couple of times to beat the final boss. What’s the game saying? Probably nothing about real life. Although, there’s a few lines the Dealer throws in that might be hinting at a greater theme. One particular line hit a little too close to home, in fact. I would lay them out here, but again, I don’t want to spoil, and they’re fairly early in the game anyway. Basically, pretty entertaining game with a pretty fun premise.

^(Agh, it’s so bright! Look away before the eclip- glowing magic card blinds you!)^

#archon reviews #review #role-playing game #roguelike #deckbuilding #hand of fate #fantasy #video games

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