Do you ever take a look at the night sky, catch a glimpse of a beautiful moon, and think, “People have been there”? I do. I do it all the time. I am fascinated with space. It has been and remains this mysterious other-place that simultaneously elicits deep wonder and unbridled joy. In May of last year Space Shuttle Endeavor, the fifth and last NASA shuttle to be built, completed it’s final mission. It was its 25th flight. It helped us explore something greater than ourselves for 30 years. Then Endeavor came home. Just a few weeks ago while driving around LA we were able to look up into the bright blue sky and see Endeavor doing it’s last victory lap before being decommissioned and transported to the California Science Center. Along the way it made a nice 3-day, 12-mile journey through Inglewood and LA. I can’t help but wonder how many young boys and girls, so often ignored and forgotten because of their zip code, turned to their parents and said, “I want to be an astronaut.”

I’m 31. I want to be an astronaut someday too.

I find that night time walks and star-gazing sessions are best accompanied by the beautiful sounds of Explosions in the Sky. I suggest their aptly titled album The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place. 

My pal Lisbeth recently tipped me off to Artifact Uprising, a site that lets you craft softcover books from your Instagram photos. There’s probably a whole bunch of options for that nowadays, but judging from a first look, these ones have that wow factor. I’m a fan of softcover square books to begin with and while I’m not a paper connoisseur, I do know recycled Mohawk is a solid choice on quality.

My only problem now is the overwhelming number of uses I have for this sort of thing. Gifts for best buddies, mementos of my bold adventures and a swish lookbook are all possibilities. Prices are super affordable and start at $10.99 for a 40 page 5.5 inch book, with options for hardcover and non-Instagram photos too. Well, I think I’ll go make one about my first year in San Francisco now. I’ll update this post to let you know how it comes out.

It’s 7:30AM. Your alarm goes off, you hit the snooze. Eventually, you roll out of bed. You put some clothes on (I hope) and you walk out the door. Where you going? Do you jump in a car, blast some Bieber and hit the road? Or maybe you put on some gloves, jump on a fixie and begin cruising.

The other day, one of my coworkers, Andy Yates, sent out this interesting e-mail that has made me rethink the way I picture our morning commute…

Could you please take a photograph whilst traveling to work one day this week? And then email it to me, with [Morning Commute] in the subject line. That’s it…

A simple idea. And, tons of e-mails later, a large collection of photos illuminating our individual daily routine, the human element behind the beginning to every business day. To me, this was a brilliant way to visualize what it means to work in a globalized world, how we all may be busy running around the same planet but are seeing it from a different perspective. A small seed idea was planted, and a tree grew – the blog now has hundreds of photos on it. I love how some people sent in snapshots of their literal transport, like a bike ride (or airplane ride, for some), while others sent things they stopped to admire, like a set of flowers.

You can see some examples below, but take a peak at all the photos on the experiment’s blog, Morning Commute. Try this project with some of your friends or coworkers – you don’t have to work at a global consultancy to kick off an interesting concept piece like this. All it takes is a little initiative, a fun idea and a blog. What’s your morning breakfast look like? Who are the randoms you see on your everyday walk?

Start exploring the world around you – and see the world through a different set of eyes.

Not to be confused with utterly absurd, the Memoto is a tiny wearable camera that shoots two geotagged photos every minute of your life. That’s right, there’s no such thing as privacy anymore so bust out the wallets and support their Kickstarter.

You’ve probably thought about what powers you would have as a superhero. Extraordinary strength, speed, psychic powers? Hell, I’ll take what I can get – even Ma-Ti’s heart power in Captain Planet. It wasn’t until leafing through Fallen Superheroes though that I wish I had suited up as my own unique superhero and been shot in all my imperfection.

Fallen Superheroes is a photography book showing us the awkward, vulnerable and less glamorous side to failed superheroes. Artie from The Adventures of Pete & Pete would fit in perfectly. They are heroes with special healing powers emanating from over-sized feet. Heroes too self-conscious to fight crime when gum is stuck to their boots.

Each sesh of this project yielded several keeper photos and is accompanied by captions in which the authors play photo association (the caption is the first thing that came to mind when looking at the photo) or tell a unique backstory that was dreamt up during the shoot.The photography is impressive. One might assume that a studio or heavy editing was involved, but all photographs are really just the work of lighting master Eric Curtis using strobe lights and our favorite star with minimal color correction and touch-ups.

This is the type of coffee table book that will catch your friends’ eyes and cause conversation to spiral off into spontaneity. But aside from showing off to pals, I found it fascinating to revisit how this project was created (in the introduction) after going through the entire series. It creates a whole new appreciation for the project and had me wishing Hollywood would put the common superheroes to rest and concentrate on a film about these guys and gals.

It always starts with a simple idea. As Chris Moloney explains it, one day, he realized that the spot outside his office window was the place the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man appeared in Ghostbusters. So he printed out of a photo, held it up, and snapped a picture. People liked it. So he did more and more. Now, his blog FILMography is filled with printed film stills overlaid around NYC where original scenes were acted out. You could say this man holds the magic of film in his hands. OK, maybe that’s cheesy, but it’s sort of true. This is definitely one of the more impressive Tumblrs I’ve seen so far: each post even features thorough descriptions so that you can search by film, location, actor or year. Check out a few below, then head on over and find stuff that interests you most.

Take a look outside. Anyone having sex on the cement? Is a tiger running loose? You never know. Canadian artist Jon Rafman has been exploring Google Street View, snapping photos from around our world to remind us that there are some seriously bizarre things going on outside. His photography is both humorous and surreal, a strange collection of screenshots that capture spontaneous oddities happening right outside our window. I love how each shot seems to have an entire novel behind it. Check out a few below, but definitely don’t miss checking out the awesome selection brought to you by Tom over at demilked.