20/20 Hindsight

Why didn't I take that offer 6 months ago?

When you're burnt out, where do you find your bliss?

This has been (another) mentally, creatively, and physically draining week. Deadlines, last minute "oh yeah, can you do this when you have a moment, by which I really mean drop what you're doing and do this instead" projects, nearly completely sedentary for five or more straight hours except for keystrokes and mousing. It's all I can do but flat out lose it. But rather than let that happen, I'm trying to seek out the positives and not let the negatives take control. It's hard. I fear that one day I might lose that struggle.

After twelve-plus hour workdays, by the time I get home I'm a tangled mass of exhaustion and frustration; low blood sugar makes for a very short fuse. Any and every little annoyance or inconvenience pushes me to the brink. But then I remember that I must keep in control, find the things that bring back my bliss. My list of bliss builders is small, but mighty. The excitement a friend discovering a new passion, developing a new skill, shares with me. Reading about the adventures of another friend on a road trip across the nation. And on nights like tonight, it's realizing that it's Wednesday and my TiVo is happily recording a new episode of Mythbusters so I can enjoy it while I microwave a frozen dinner.

So that's where I find my bliss these days. Where do you find yours?

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[5 minutes later…] — So it turns out that for some unexplained reason, the "new" episode of Mythbusters that TiVo was recording is actually a repeat from last season, even though the schedule says it's supposed to be brand-spaking new. Well that's just the prefect way to end the day. Screw off Discovery Channel, I'm going to bed.

Angel gets the gold medal

Too bad cock-blocking (the visual kind, not the While you were ordering drinks I told that hot guy you were talking to that your rash is probably not contagious anymore…Hey! Where did he go? kind) isn't a recognized event, or Angel would be a world-class cathlete.

Here he is sticking the tricky off-axis back horizontal double block. Even with a difficulty rating of 4.6 and the obviously biased German judge, his flawless ear to speedo synchronization could easily win more medals than Michael Phelps. If, of course, censoring speedos during the men's synchronized diving finals with your ears was a medaling sport; it's still just an exhibition sport I believe.

Is America F'd? If you're a graphic designer, you already know the answer.

A word of warning for those with virgin ears (and eyes). This post (both text and the embedded video) has the word fuck in it. Don't worry, it's completely justified.


America Is F*cked.......(Graphically at least) from Jess Gibson on Vimeo.

Basically this is labeled an opinion piece, but seriously, when the opinion is so categorically true, it's really a fact. A sad fact of how much some people are willing to pay for crap design, and that it devalues and discredits designers that really do deserve the big bucks. Are we as American's becoming ambivalent to Wal-mart quality design? Yes. Do we care? Apparently not, because as long as we pay top dollar for it, we must be getting our money's worth, right? I won't even answer that because the reality is far too depressing.

If you'll excuse, I'm going to go stab myself with Illustrator's knife tool until the Pantone 1795C bleeds into the gutter.

[via CreativeBits.org]

Something I've always wanted…and finally have.

When I was but a wee tyke, TV commercials had a pretty powerful impact on me. They made me want things. They made me beg for things. Sugary breakfast cereals. The latest whiz-bang toy. Fishing rods that collapsed to fit in your pocket. Unfortunately for an active pre-preteen consumer like myself, I had to rely on good ol' mom and pop to finance such pursuits. And 99 times out of 100, they failed to recognize the enormous significance of the item requested.

My mom being somewhat of a health-nut never bought us anything even remotely fun for a breakfast cereal. If we were lucky, we'd get granola with raisins, but the rest of the time it was puffed millet or Uncle Sam Cereal. I would have to sneak over to my neighbors house and covertly raid their Fruit Loops and Cookie Crisp supplies when they weren't watching.

As far as toys went, anything involving guns or violence were always passed on, and again, I would have to turn to the kids in the neighborhood for a little GI Joe action. Or in a pinch, there was always my sister's Barbie dolls. Hmmm…I wonder…

While my family would drive the hour to the lake to go waterskiing, that was the extent of our aquatic sportsmanship so I never learned out to fish, which means that now I have a fear of getting lost in the woods and not being able to survive because I can't catch a fish to literally save my life.

It may seem odd that after 30 years I'm just now living out a childhood dream. Sadder still is that I probably could have done so much sooner, but simply didn't realize it. That dream? To have a Snoopy Sno-Cone Maker of my very own. Growing up I had a love of all things Peanuts, partly because there's a narrow connection in our extended family to the creator of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang, Charles M. Schulz. For some reason I just figured they had stopped making toy long ago and thus, never really thought about it again until I saw it advertised at the bottom of an email from CreativePro.com. Instantly I flashed back to my youth and could vividly remember how much I wanted one. Within minutes I was smiling at the order confirmation screen, brimming with self-satisfaction.

When it finally arrived, Betty helped pop my sno-cone making cherry — apparently she's a pro when it come to making sno — and after a quick assembly process we started cranking away. Maybe the shaving blades of the original version were sharper back in the day because honestly making sno for one serving took more than a lot of effort, it took a long time. How on earth did kids power this twenty or more years ago? Oh that's right, they were all amped up from the sugary breakfast cereals. As my first taste of the icy and sweet treat hit my lips, I felt like a part of me had been completed.

A random passerby asked what we were doing (all that ice scraping produces an obscene amount of noise and can attract the wrong kind of attention) and Betty filled him in on the fulling of my childhood wish. He saw it as me trying to complete a bucket list, which brought a whole mortality level into the conversation that was kind of a downer. Fortunately all it took to distract me from thoughts of my now apparent doom was another cold. syrupy-sweet jolt of cherry flavor. That, and a muscle cramp in my forearm.

On and Under the Hill

Had the opportunity recently to spend a little time in The City. Meant to go out and take more pictures than the ones I did, but halfway through the day the motivation left me; too cold, too crowded, too expensive. But I still captured several shot that I like (and surprised they turned out as well as they did as handheld shots because neither my camera nor lenses are particularly great in low lighting situations). The day proved that maybe I need to consider contact lens rather than glasses as viewfinders and glasses aren't very compatible.







Little by little I'm starting to ramp back up creatively outside of work. Will need to especially if GPP is going to go anywhere.

Something I've always wanted…

Can't wait to whip this puppy out on Friday. Methinks I should invite Betty over to enjoy a cool and refreshing icy treat too. Hope she likes grape.

Single Rider

It all started back in high school when I got my first set of wheels. A 1969 Chevy Malibu. A borderline muscle car (if it had a bigger engine) it was a rather butch vehicle for me, and I liked that. I also like that it was a hand-me-down from my dad and sort of symbolized a bit of a passing of the torch or the extension of a legacy. More importantly, to me, it symbolized freedom.

If I wanted to go somewhere, it was up to me. Hop in the car, and go as far as a tank of gas would allow. During the summer between my junior and senior year in high school, I could most often be found tearing up the deserted roads in the rolling hills east of town. The speedometer went up to 120-mph and I liked to see how close I could get to the century mark on the flat straightaways before having to brake hard before the next series of hills. Cranking the likes of Jesus Jones, Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch, C+C Music Factory, Vanilla Ice, Seal, Roxette, Madonna, Wilson Phillips, Depeche Mode, B-52s, Janet Jackson, and Amy Grant (yes, I had a varied taste in music, still do) on KWOD 106.5 FM during my long solo flights of back-roads fancy left me with a high, a sensation I find myself longing for whenever I'm feeling tied down. If I was lucky, "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News would hit the airwaves and I'd be transported into a state or nirvana pretending I was in a flux capacitor equipped DeLorean back in good ol' 1985. (Hey, I'm a geek, what did you expect?)

Back then, those joyrides-for-one were a time of self discovery. Thinking about the past, the future, and how to just keep making the most of the present. I had come to terms with the part of me that I had to keep secret, so getting away from everyone, even for a couple of hours, allowed me to drop character and just be me with me. Those were good times. Necessary times. And affordable times with gas under a buck a gallon.

I've never outgrown that need for solitary adventure. Throughout my varied collegiate endeavors, I would often find that the perfect study break to mentally refocus was usually a brisk drive on Silverado Trail through the vineyards of the Napa Valley (29 was always too crowded) or Hwy 1 around Half Moon Bay and points south. Heck, sometimes a good get-myself-lost-in-the-city drive would do the trick.

My first major trip by myself happened in the latter half of the 90s when I was given the opportunity to visit South Korea for a week, all expenses paid. There are so many great stories to tell — including slow dancing with and being serenaded by a woman at the same time — but such tales are for another time.

The next major solo trip was for what I consider my first "real" vacation, meaning that I was working a real job, making real money, and was using real vacation days to take my next globetrotting trip. Where did I end up? The Jamacian Outback. Click on the link if you've never heard of it. It is to this date probably my most daring and relaxing getaway ever. And yes, it too is filled with plenty of stories that will one day be told here.

The last big adventure-for-one was more than four years ago and I've got the itch to fly solo again. This time, though, I've got a few more shackles tying me down (mortgage, work, inflation) that are making it challenging to take the trip I want need to take. Not willing to let those things stop me, I've decided — and I know I'm tempting fate by even mentioning it here; the cookie told me not to — to take a shorter, more realistic road-trip down to SoCal and hit up 3 theme parks in three days. I've priced it all out and provided I can get those days off, it looks like it will be a wicked fun and still affordable thrill-seeking good time. Which brings us back to the title of this post. For those of you not familiar with the term, "single rider" refers traveling by themselves who is allowed to skip ahead the ride's queue and fill any open seat on the ride. It's an amazing time saver! The downside is that you're not able to share the thrill and experience with anyone you know in the moment, which depending on your outlook might not be so bad after all.

There you have it. I'm embracing my Single Rider status because I realized that at the end of the day, you're only going to have the trip you're looking for by going it alone. And if you want to share the memories with someone else, bring a camera and post your pics on Flickr. You won't have to buy the camera a seat on the plane and it won't work itself into a gay rage about how loudly you snore.

TiVo, will you marry me?

Two posts in as many days? And both "Nerd Alerts" to boot?? No, hell hasn't frozen over, so let's not panic, OK?

Tonight I came home late (again) and being Friday meant that it was time to watch my Thursday night shows. And until Mythbusters returns in a few days) the only TV I watch presently. "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List" is pretty much the maximum amount of TV I'm watching these days. Or nights. When I actually have time. Thanks the universal higher powers (and the universal remote control) for TiVo. But now I have one more reason to thank the powers, the remote, and the software engineers over in Alviso. I'm referring, of course, to the Summer 2008 software update! And it brings the love of my life — TiVo Series 3 — several steps closer to perfection.

"So what's the big deal about some software update? How big of a nerd are you?!"

A really big one. And this update brings with it a great new feature to TiVo: YouTube.

"Really? You're working yourself up into a gay tizzy over YouTube? YouTube?!? My freaking phone has YouTube on it. Geez!"

Well, my phone has it too (and it probably looks better for reasons I won't get in to. BUT... I bet your phone doesn't have a 42" widescreen and pumps out 1080p resolution! Well, YT videos don't actually come in that resolution, but my TiVo and TV both do a great job upscaling it and the results a totally watchable (provided the video wasn't captured on a cheap camera phone). Now I can watch Criso Zills, Michael Buckley, and Match Game clips from the comfort of my sofa. The navigation ain't horrible, but it's definitely not the same searching experience as on a computer (or even an iPhone). And I'm disappointed that for whatever reason, Randy Pausch's Last Lecture, the full 1 hour and 16 minutes of it, is no where to be found (this probably has something to do with it not yet being updated with the new codec). But I can make do with the tons of other videos already out there. Maybe in a future update TiVo will be able to subscribe to YT broadcasters. That would be neat.

There's several other nifty enhancements, many of which really should have been there to begin with, but better late than never, right?

So at this point in my life, TiVo has crossed the threshold of something I love, to something of marriage material. Perfect? No. But far better than anything else I've seen out there.

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You may have noticed that this post has a ton of links in it. Well, you can thank MarsEdit for that. Adding links (and other tags) has never been simpler! I'm having to say that using it is starting to restore the fun found in blogging. My full review of it will be coming at the end of the trial period. Stay tuned…