state radio in amsterdam

you can catch more state radio on a sweet concert site -
a full concert from their recent europe tour - by clicking on this link:
http://www.fabchannel.com/stateradio

favorite. band. ever.

i've only recently jumped on the youtube bandwagon... i tried uploading a video last night - and it worked! - of my favorite band because i naively thought there wasn't much of them on youtube.

i was totally, undeniably wrong.
my video with its crappy sound and red tint (schubas doesn't spend much on lights, they're red and they don't move) was blown out of the water and down the street by this video of MY FAVORITE BAND EVER.



um. this video is mine. very amateur, let's face the facts.



i love having a favorite band. i love that somewhere there is something that is undeniably better to me than anything else in its category. it's not often that you can really pick something and say "this is the best, ever" and not have to justify it to anyone. just enjoy it for all it is!

feeling strangely fine

last night - TEN HOURS of sleep.

now: off to the gym,
then pay off some bills,
then dinner and a movie with cassie.
(little miss sunshine)

peace out for now ~

joke's on me

eating froot loops. remembering how when my sister jenna was little she said her favorite flavor of food was "blue, because that means it's fake and it's candy."

this week, i'll tell you what.
i was all set to go to Design Camp™ and have a grand old time, and i did - but just before i left wunderman made a counteroffer for me to not only stay, but go into Strategic Planning. like at 5:05pm. and i was shaking, i was so flipped out about it, but i had to take a deep breath and tell them i could only have an answer when i got back from minnesota.

here are some camp highlights.

(you CAN'T JUST LEAVE THAT TOPIC HANGING, right??? that's how i felt. the ten hour drive each way, the workshops, the bonfire - it all had a low-level anxiety underneath it as i thought out which would be better for me in the short term, the long term, the contacts, the exposure. so now you'll know how i felt - camp is so great but you just want to rush to the decision. and it's not that easy.)

highlights: making new business cards with a stamp i bought at office depot on the way up. they got some great reviews, being called super modern. that had me feeling like a super designer :)

staying in a log cabin

late nights at the bonfire


walking down to the beach whenever i felt like it

quality speakers

nerd activities like Pantone Bingo

the pavilion with the band and the bar
click here to see more.

so what happened then? every person i talked to said to keep the dotomi job. every last one but my friend ryan. which stuck with me, because i've always described his and my relationship as "our points A and B are the same, but our paths between the points have nothing in common." in other words, i trust his opinion like i trust my own, knowing that though he and i are totally different, i am very likely to reach the same conclusion in most cases.

but there was pressure from parents, co-workers, strangers weighing in. everyone said "you shouldn't stay where they wouldn't hire you without that pressure of losing you."

and then everyone said "it's great to have a choice."
and i was like "yeah, yeah."
so i got back home and decided to go with dotomi.

then i went and talked to a woman at wunderman with every intention of going in to say goodbye and thanks. instead she sat me down and made me accountable for why i was leaving. together we talked through all my hesitations, and then i realized what was really stopping me was that i was being told "you would be so great at this" and i had no idea what "this" was. so we talked to the planning women, and i found out that since i was "such a natural" they all assumed i already did know exactly what i was getting into. and the more we talked, the more it became so very clear that planning is something i didn't even really know about but it could not be more tailored to what is exciting to me about design. according to everything i've heard and read and asked and answered, this is my ultimate dream job.

on top of that is the fact that the other planning women are the first two women in a long time of whom i've thought "i want to be you in five years." and that's just as exciting. i love art direction, being a designer, but this allows for more ambition, bigger goals, a further reach. when i thought long-term, this role does outdistance the role i've been shooting for since graduating college.

so right now it's 4:36pm on friday afternoon, and i'm waiting to have the actual offer letter in my hands before i call dotomi and break some hearts... i feel like a jerk for accepting and then declining the offer, but i take a lot of pride in being able to say "it's not you, not the money or the perks or anything else - it's the work. the day-to-day work that would be different, and i can't deny this new opportunity."

so as of Monday, October 16th, i'm going to be a Strategic Planner for Wunderman! full time and everything :)

that's right

forgot my cellphone today. which is really, really bad. email me if you need my work number.

NEW JOB

um, i put in my two week notice today at Wunderman because Oct 23rd will be my first day at Dotomi. i'm trying to wrap my head around my career this morning after talking to HR and my mentors in production and strategic planning...

what this change comes down to is that even though i found out that Wunderman had an intention to hire me before the end of the year, it would have been for about 10k less than what i make now and it would have been 75% administrative work for the first year. i had to tell HR look, i really appreciate knowing this, but i don't have that kind of time to invest any more when i could be choosing a career path right now. Dotomi will have me on as an art director from day one, and that's a career move.

the worst part of today: telling people.
the best part: their reactions.

everyone understood 100%. they've all watched me hang on for the past year and deliberate my own worth while working for three distinct groups internally and keeping up two freelance clients on my own time. i've been a nut for design, and it's amazing the recognition i didn't know i had around here. HR even went so far as to say they'll be calling me when a position opens in planning, probably in two years, and the head of Strategic Planning said she understood but is not going to stop trying to get me hired. possibly the most encouraging morning i've ever had, and it's the day i declare my departure.

[deep breath]

so new place! it's in the lyric opera house, so it's the other side of town - but i'm actually going to be working exactly in-between where my two sisters work and next door to my former roommate. i start in about 2.5 weeks and it's a lot of things i like: casual atmosphere, hard working, collaborative structure, still get to wear jeans and pumas every day. plus training in boston!!! i get to go back east for a couple weeks. not sure when, but i'll post when i find out :)

i loved confessing to HR that i only kept my resume on the market half-assedly to cover myself. i didn't go out looking for jobs, i got several cold calls, i turned down a couple of jobs to stay here, and ultimately it looks like it has worked in my favor. being in a position of interviewing while i had a job i liked made me able to hardball things - - like how i actually said to Dotomi "i like my job, i like where i am and i'll only leave for something better." and then my new director turned around and gave me exactly that. and when i told HR woman i had said that verbatim, she hugged me.

[another deep breath]

poster 2

poster idea

comments welcome!
click for larger view...
comments welcome!

my newest source of amusement

kristy's getting married

and she is so pretty.

beware, men, this is what we do - try on sparkly dresses in rooms covered in mirrors so we can all see each other's reactions.

and sometimes we try on more than we need to because what the hell, the dresses are sparkly and swish ever-so-lovingly around us, as though to whisper sweet nothings to our knees.

cubs day in the sun

update from last sunday - - went to see a cubs game from some rooftop bleachers with the Lawrence Hall group:

we had some meet & greet time to get to know the boys - some, like myself, only see them once a year at this event. it's always a little awkward at first, of course - like, that "how do i approach people again?" moment. you always worry they won't like you, but they always do.

we had some games set up - baseball bingo and baseball trivia games; every game had, let's be honest, an array of prizes. everyone had a goody bag and we conspired to have each one full.
the seventh inning stretch was led emphatically by the back row
but the boys seemed jazzed to just be there at all :) this guy in particular really liked my camera. this was the deal, that he could use it if i could take his picture.
i'd say the deal worked out in my favor when he took a nice one for me
i struck the same deal with anthony, but i had to catch him first:
he had some good ones too
this photo is titled, "another hot brunette in my family"

so it was an awesome day.
especially when cubs beat the reds 11 to 3.
EIGHT RUNS IN THE FIRST INNING. can't beat that.

and hey - link to Lawrence Hall, click here.

back to an old topic for me

i'm watching Fidel (the Castro Project) and it's astounding to see this particular perspective - most Cuban retrospectives are focused on Martí or Che. it needs a grain of salt - it even says on the Netflix envelope that it's "a somewhat uneven drama" - but after personally studying the revolution length i'm so impressed by the actors' portrayal both physical and emotional of Fidel and Che.

something is burning in my mind: in the movie they show the Cuban governmental offices when they found out about the withdrawl of Russian missiles during the Cuban Missile Crisis - then they turn on an American TV channel for information, aghast that they were left out of negotiations, and the American channel shows army men being kissed by girls in the streets, the 50s extreme optimism, the propaganda that was too young and sincere to be true propaganda. In Cuba, there was a struggle for the new definition of a humanist republic and we instead show human interest, happy people living well. Nothing in our mass media has changed. i won't bore you with that manifesto, though.

my biggest problem in this film is what they choose to gloss over. this movie is three and a half hours long and they boil down che's commitment to the Central American republic - bringing the Revolution to Bolivia and Chile - to one conversation. they cover the second half of Che's life in three scenes. the scene of Che's assination is pretty wrenching.

oh - oh -- it's ending now and it's unrelentingly cheezy. the end of the film: Fidel addresses the camera directly and calls America hypocrites for punishing those that don't follow the United States' rules, after three hours of watching Fidel jail or otherwise punish those that fell out of line of the Revolution. And thank you Netflix - the last ten minutes of the DVD are warped. Shoot. What a weird ending for a good movie. but at the end, here is my overarching statement about this flick: don't watch it unless you already know a lot about the subject matter. if this is all you know about the Cuban revolution, you're being irresponsible.

that being said, it was interesting and i'm very glad i got to see all but the last ten minutes of it... good acting, good music, questionable storytelling.

FYI

and just so you know what i'm up against here:
10 to 14 hour days of this:

1. Corte las alas en partes, a la altura de las articulaciones, para poder asarlas más fácilmente. Derrita dos cucharadas de margarina Fleischmann’s a fuego medio en una olla grande. Añada las alas y dórelas durante cinco minutos por lado.
¡find the errors!

needlessly serious

the thunder rumbles on, and my sore ass is still here at the office. taking a minor mental break (fingers flinching, semi-poised over the key command to minimize the window lest boss-man disrupt me) mental break from updating the Spanish recipes on the Butterball site.

typing Spanish, proofreading Spanish as though it were my primiary language and not my tertiary. for those who don't know, that means third.

thunder again. had chipotle for lunch and while it's debatable whether my shoes were made for walkin', it is a solid and unredeeming fact that they are not made to walk in the rain. there is a thin layer of sludge where my heels rest. nasty.

so the shoes, their sparkles and sequins reside under my desk. away from my doting little piggies. my right eye twiches. twice. it's nearly time to go home. until i return tomorrow to solve new problems, overhear new conversations, possibly get more job offers.

that's right. you heard me. maybe more job offers. two more that aren't even from headhunter people. new people that found me on their own.

i will wear better shoes tomorrow.

lights on the highway

saw something very cool last night.

i jumped off of lake shore drive to get the photo - coming home from Tyler's place in hyde park (south side - 3 exits past the planetarium) and i wish the photos came out of it in the bigger skyline. but because i'm only so talented at taking pictures from my window while driving (i'm such a professional), i turned off at congress and kept driving and turning and driving until i was suddenly right up close to a very quiet, dark, simple memorial. i'm not all up in the 9-11 stuff today, but i'm remembering the memorial gary and i used to hang out by in downtown boston, one of those children's letters lacquered on cement type things. the first night we found it, we just read it for hours in the streetlight glow, taking turns pointing out one letter or another.

usually i'd go on a rant about global politcs and the MDC and third world debt right about here, but it feels really forced. this blog is an exercise in narcissism, but turning 9-11 into any kind of vehicle for my own viewpoints would be totally crossing a line.

also interesting: "Viewpoints: The world since 9/11" (click here). among those interviewed is the executive director of Human Rights Watch.

hiatus is OVER.

it's been almost two weeks since my last post because the last two weeks have included unheard of hours at the office. and fourteen solid hours a day at my desk without the spare time to get lunch or play with blogger going all XML (if you don't know what that means, it's very cool. if you do know, appreciate it with me: [sigh of relief goes here].

three big things have gone down in that time.
1. i went to michigan over labor day weekend with Betsy and Pam.

stayed at a lovely cabin

jumped in a pool

wandered around South Haven; shopped second-hand stores

came really close to getting some "new" vinyl

2. came back to Chicago and saw Pink Martini at the House of Blues - from an Opera box! and i finally made it to the Foundation Room, which was off the hook, as they say.

these peeps are my dad's favorite band ever. amazing live show

3. this one has no pictures associated to it... just cool news... i've been recruited by a couple of headhunters lately, and it's amazing because i'm in a really good position. i REALLY like my job, so i have the freedom to say things like i'll only leave for more money, or for full benefits, i only apply for full-time positions. it makes me sound all desired and hardball-playing being so frank, and it's really fun.

in that vein, i've also been doing some random work at wunderman for strategic planning. it's been mostly admin stuff, but whenever i find relevant links or articles i forward them around -- and suddenly last week i found out something i can't talk about yet, but there's a possibility of maybe, well, a career shift soon. i'm not getting my hopes up - like, do we remember the Target fiasco last february? my heart's not made to be broken, as the song goes, so i'm not gonna really try to believe in it yet... but it's like for the first time i've met someone whose job i actually want. when i was at Wunderman before and when i returned, both times i saw who i was working under and i didn't necessarily like where i was likely to move up towards. but i see what the Planning people's jobs are like, what they do and what they need to know, and we talk about living in lofts and dinner parties... it's all very attractive. i like the work and i like the team people as role models. so that's kind of a big deal to me... i'm excited. it also brings up the possibility of being hired full-time, which frankly makes me salivate.

a night without nyquil after three nights with

...i love nyquil.
...today, yesterday, and the day before had twelve hours at the office.
...how can i possibly keep up with the freelancing?
...i stepped down from IdentityTheory. i miss it already.
...there's so much more i want to do with my day.
...but then that saturday comes and i'm sleepy. and have to pay the bills.
...
...after getting out of the shower i asked myself, "what am i looking forward to most?"
...the answer, immediately, was "black tee shirt and a big glass of water."
...i dig simplicity.
...
...part of me is still in love with parts of people. my heart exists of smaller hearts, some murmuring and some whimpering the names of ghosts, fragments of memories. i once said to one man, "you have no idea how hard my heart rattles when you've shaken it." HE HAD NO IDEA WHAT I MEANT and that's a big part of why we don't work. i miss him terribly. but perfect as he was, he's no poet.
...
...my hair has turned curly when my whole life it's been known to be straight. i like it.
...it's time to travel again. but where?
...and with what money? seriously.
...i've been going to the expedia giveaway promotion and clicking every day, but nothing happens. somehow that hasn't damaged my sense of good luck. i feel like i'll win some vacation and i've managed to not be disappointed when it doesn't happen.
...
...design camp is coming up.
...ah, design camp.
...i have one glorious crush at camp. i wonder if he'll be there.
...i wonder if i'll be over him. that would be ironic.
...when will this nyquil kick in?
...oh. wait. didn't have any. meh.
...it's after midnight, it just starts to SOUND late.
...
...
...
...
...

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.

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...

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.

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

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

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:

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."

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 :)

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.