8.22.2006

funniest thing i've seen in months

http://indexed.blogspot.com/this one is titled, "Dress the Part"
there are a whole SERIES of these. check 'em out.

8.21.2006

new work

"jesus is just all right with me" is the song currently in my head. which is really a good contrast to the nelly furtado i was listening to this morning. i'm going on no sleep again - i was sleeping in the 'burbs last night and no siren lullabyes like i get in the city. no orange glow lights, just the peace and quiet that makes me unreasonably paranoid. drinking lots of cold water to stay alert. drove to work today. faxed in my Design Camp registration! speaking of design:

start of a web site. his awesome comments (paraphrased):
- the ambiance is perfect.
- can you take my picture out? and focus on the logo instead.
- i'm excited to pay you in concert tickets.
- "this doesn't need to move and blink and all that s**t."

this may be one of those perfect client relationships...

8.17.2006

air and water show

is it so wrong that these planes are freaking me out?

improving

so i had five hours of sleep last night and two the night before, so it's getting better. but i was taking out my contacts at 11pm last night and thinking, "I. Am. Not. Tired." and meaning it! and feeling odd about that - this sudden shortage kind of makes me feel tough. like, i can maintain all sense of normalcy and focus while on so little sleep and it makes me wonder how little i really need.

i don't like waking up tired, though, so i'm not pushing it. but the physiology is really facinating... like the legend of Da Vinci sleeping 20 minutes every four hours. i just googled it and apparently it's a legitimate idea called Polyphasic Sleep.

one serious side effect for me on this nutty schedule is that it makes me feel seriously nostalgic and empathetic. i've been moved by stupid commercials, on and off glued to BBC news, and devouring Mike Doughty's blog. Mike Doughty is totally my new celebrity crush. the list is maybe five men long, but he's just reached the ranks. Click here to check out the blog. Scroll down and check out his links to his writing from Ethiopia, it's worth it. in a very narcisstic way it makes me think of some of my writing from other countries. i posted a few of them on my new portfolio site (click here). the rest of them will come probably this weekend.

Mike quotes one of his many tour guides:
"Eritrea think you can make a country with blood and iron," Genanew says, "but Ethiopia know you can make a country only with loving."

beautiful. one of my sisters is very anti-online anything, which at this point in my career and general life is antithetical to my every- day- experience. mike doughty's blog is exactly what the value of blogs is: people read it, people get it, people receive a window into another experience that they would never otherwise know. if well written, it's the same as reading a magazine or novel. for example, brahm stoker's dracula could have been a blog - a huge part of that book is comprised of diary entries. same. exact. idea. except doughty hasn't encountered any vampires that i've read about.

i heart mike doughty.

8.16.2006

CAN'T. SLEEP.

therefore, began uploading the new website. not much content yet. at all. but that links page, boy is that fun...
http://www.flambegraphics.com

8.14.2006

happy birthday aimee!!!

this picture is of aimee and shonda, two of my best girls in the city. unfortunately for me, my girls have gotten bigger and crazier jobs that will do things like take them out to Virginia. who will i have dinner with then? (aimee is on the right)

we went to Andalous Moroccan on clark street for aimee's birthday / yay new jobs party. this place is phenomonal, the food is authentic and tasty, but it's definitely the kind of joint where you get to wait 90 minutes before your food is brought to the table. so you chatter, you drink some wine, have some hummus, some peppers and pita bread. they DO have a kickass patio, let's be serious here - murals and lanterns. (this is mel)

for sure a three-hour affair... and totally a great time

8.13.2006

reflection

when Chicago feels like florida:taken from the top of the Drake Hotel on Michigan Ave. Met my parents there for breakfast and pretended i was somewhere equally exotic.

which kind of happened later. i found the farmer's market on division (three blocks from my apartment) and it was almost as amazing as the Des Moines farmer's market! i've been lusting for my old Des Moines treasure trove of flowers, baked goods, omish treats, wicker baskets, and musicians... the division market is about 1/8 the size and has about 1/100th of the goods, but i found some tomatoes, acorn squash, flowers, and PEOPLE. it was really fun to wander through and i'm planning on making it a habit to tide me over until i get back to Des Moines.


plus, let's point out the best deal in town:

8.12.2006

new client alert

redoing the web presence of St James Inc

including, but not limited to: site, e-postcards, banners, myspace.
payment in concert tickets, gratitude, and high-fives.

also known as
"from one broke and dreaming twenty-something to another."

8.11.2006

bigger photos

starting with the pictures below, i'm going to be linking to bigger photos. so click on the pictures and you'll see them even better than before.

so i totally forgot to talk about last week

i'm a creepy person on myspace and will sometimes find people who i haven't talked to in years, or never really did. one such person of the latter category got an email from me that basically read, "i'm not pretending we ever hung out or anything, but i found your myspace from the new trier alum myspace, and i really dig your music. very cool. have a great day."

so austin emailed me back, we wrote back and forth a couple of times, and eventually he invited me to a chicago show (he now lives in austin. i think the band should be called Austin from Austin but it's called St James Inc). this was one of my first forays into Subterreanean in Bucktown, and i LOVED it. what a cool venue. the room with the stage is tall and narrow, so there's a standing room and you can go upstairs, where the bar up there is a U-shaped balcony so you can see more from above.

being me, though, i was front and center despite being there by myself :) that's just how i roll. if i'm doing something, i might as well rock it for all it's worth, you know? picts of austin:


and two suprise bonuses for me!!! the first: the kid in the brown shirt on stage with St James is Andrew, another high school person who i liked, but never hung out with. turns out he just got out of Rhode Island School of Design (it's a big deal in DesignLand) and did St James' CDs. and he's a part-time rapper. and now i have concrete evidence that he's every bit as cool as i ever thought he was (there was ample... maybe a better word is rampant evidence that austin was that cool back in the day, so he's confirmed awesome as opposed to revealed to be awesome). so Andrew is bonus #1.

bonus #2: the base player below:

#2 is Jeff, the guy on the left. huge fan of him - always was. we had a couple of classes together in high school and i'm, like, facinated by this kid. plus i tried to look him up probably six months ago because i had a need for a cello player, and he's a classically trained cellist. i googled him, emailed a band looking for him, and a girl writes me back saying she thinks he's playing somewhere in Europe. so i had assumed i'd never see him again. then to have him happen to be in Todd Carey's band, to go to the show for Austin and WHOA! on stage next is jeff.


Todd Carey's pretty great, too. not sure if i actually know him, but i like him a lot. this all went down last thursday, i was out until about 2am till i cabbed it home feeling wired and excited, signs of a great show. it was fun to see the guys, kind of re-introduce myself, but there were a bunch of people like that in the crowd, people i know but never knew. and most of them were pretty darn friendly. i didn't expect anyone to remember me, seeing as i had my own friends back in the day, but somehow the friendly chatter was sincerely friendly :)

then friday i went to the dentist.
not as exciting, but my dentist said i'm a rockstar.
saturday - uneventful. got a lot done for my new portfolio site.
sunday - sleepy and good. went to church and ambled around afterwards through Wrigleyville with shonda.

which brings us back to the present, almost :)

8.08.2006

major tragedy

and i thought i was having a good day.
here's the catch-22 of it: i don't trust the media, i don't trust the uninformed opinions of my peers. i don't trust the agenda of the government because i don't believe they're working with any agenda i actually have access to knowing; i don't trust anyone, anywhere, about anything. i don't trust myself. what do i know?

case in point: i have seen two examples of manipulated media today that make me physically sick. if i saw the people who created these right in front of me, i would kick them in the shins and call their mothers.

#1: Qana - the director's cut. Click here.

#2: Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut. Click here.

but it leaves me to wonder: both of these reports came from blogs (run by Blogger, just like THIS BLOG), the former claiming "To discuss issues related to the UK's position in Europe and the world." WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? why should i trust them, either?

it's almost enough to make me renounce everything, sell all my worldly posessions and become a biochemical engineer. i could really use some facts right now.

8.03.2006

minor tragedy

my favorite boss, one of my most favorite bosses ever, who i called "hot boss" to my family and friends, has unexpectedly quit to go somewhere else. he came by today to tell me tomorrow's his last day.

this means our group is one smaller (now we're at eight), and my fears have been confirmed that literally every person on deck will jump ship at the first good chance.

that being said, i've been recruited by a headhunter (very exciting) and had an interview last week that went very well. i'm expecting to know soon. but hot boss just HAD to go and steal all my thunder. i'm kidding. i'm very happy for him - i just explained it to someone as saying he's much bigger and smarter than his job here allows him to be. if this new gig allows him to really go crazy the way he wants to, it's going to be very exciting. no matter what... sad to not work with hot boss* anymore.

*hot boss does not mean i think he's attractive.
it means he's nice and smart and has a lot of great boss-qualities.