House of Wonder

Check out this new site I’m working on. Still needs some work, but it’s up there!

Griffin Adhesives

Fitzy-Boy in the breezeway of Aunt Hilda's house in Olmsted Falls, OH.

Old Fitzy-Boy…we got you some time in ‘96 if I remember correctly…five years old already. A big moon was how our friend described you to us. Big, beautiful, white kitty…it took some adjusting but we soon got along. You had a big meow, bigger than any cat I’d heard. Kinda’ raspy, but bellowing. You loved to lick toes in the morning…you were an expert mouser even though you’d had your front claws removed before we got ‘ya. You’d growl every once in a while but almost never hiss. I remember one time you got a hold of the drawstring of Mik’s sweatshirt and dragged it out, pulling on it until she had to take the sweatshirt off and let you take it. You were Simba’s friend, Milo’s mentor and friend to anyone who came over to visit. Never afraid, always looking to get a little affection. When dogs came around, you didn’t run or hiss, but stood your ground. Fitzy you were an original. Noble, confident, poised, independent.

I hated to see you get sick. You were such a strong boy. Battling arthritis, high blood pressure, nausea, kidney disease, loss of hearing…you did your best to hang on. I only wish there were something more I could have done to keep you going, to fix your ills and get you back to your younger self. The happy, healthy kitty you were for so long.

The last couple of weeks were devastating. Your limp had gotten worse. You fought me when I gave you your medicine. You’d barely eat and all I could do was force feed you. I did it all out of love for you, Fitzy! But maybe there was something more…something we didn’t know and you continued to decline. I hated to leave you in the morning and just wanted to rush back home to see how you were doing. If you were feeling any better. But you couldn’t do it anymore. My heart was shattering…I carried you around, put you on the couch with me and tried to comfort you. It was then I realized I couldn’t let you suffer like that any longer. You made your last trip to the vet…not happy to be there but you had become so fragile…Dr. Ray gave you the sedative and it took a couple of minutes for it to set in. Then you started to slump over and I helped you lay down and stretch out. You held your back leg, the sore one, tight to your body for another minute then let it relax and I felt so much guilt and grief. My sweet boy, these are your last moments…we hugged and kissed you, told you we loved you so much and stroked your thin body. Your eyes were so blue and radiant, I hope you were feeling bliss and could see how much we loved you, how much we wished there were any other way. When the doctor gave you your final injection you held out for another minute then succumbed…I could see the light was gone from your eyes. Anything to have you back, Fitzy! I held you some more and we stroked your body for the last time. My big buddy, I hope there’s some place for you beyond this world, free of pain and suffering where you’ve got your health and someone is there to take care of you. I am so sorry and miss you so much! Rest in peace. old friend…

I consider this to be an essential upgrade for anyone with a late 2008 MacBook Pro. I got my upgrade from OWC. I’ve also bought ram for my Mac Mini from OWC and it’s been rock solid for several years.

I’ve had AT&T u-Verse for a couple of months now. My impressions…

1. Pricey. Not entirely AT&T’s fault, since I did opt for the  AT&T u-Verse u200 Double Pack. Comes with (1) DVR unit and broadband. I upgraded the broadband to ELITE 6mbps downstream ($10/upgrade from standard) + (1) extra non-DVR unit ($7). That brings the grand total to $114. HD is another $10/mo. so I skimped on that. My total bill with taxes and such is $119 — more than I was paying with Comcast.
2. Fast. I haven’t had a problem running 2 laptops over the WiFi. Even when streaming a movie from Netflix. Mind you, I haven’t done any diagnostics…this is just my impression.
3. Wifi died on AT&T router. After a month, the radio on the router took a dump. Fortunately, I had another WiFi router to pick up the slack. It’s worked just fine with the other router broadcasting the WiFi. I did have to change some settings on the routers, but that wasn’t too difficult.
4. Broadband tech service sucks. My mistake in dealing with the router problem mentioned above, was in calling AT&T’s customer service to help me with the problem. I explained the problem to the support guy over and over again and he just didn’t get it. He wasted a good hour of my time, after which I told him I’d fix it myself. I would advise checking the forums for any problems before calling tech support.
5. DVR accessible by other receivers. I like that I can watch my recorded shows on the other TV that doesn’t have a DVR.
6. No down time. Other than the WiFi problem, AT&T broadband has been stable at all times of the day. This helps because I work from home and telecommute often, and when I had Comcast it was always dropping out.

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I got the Roku Netflix player today, plugged it in, configured it and within a couple of minutes was watching an episode of The Office via Netflix instant play. It comes with the option of hooking it up via ethernet cable or over your wireless connection (it’s wireless g). Simply put, it’s awesome and works great. I’m not sure how to shut it off…maybe it doesn’t shut off…but the stream was very acceptable. Not the kind of quality you’d expect with DVD or cable but sufficient for watching TV show and movies. I’m not a quality purist, so don’t take my word for it, but I’m very happy. I had been streaming films through my Macbook Pro and the quality is equivalent. Well worth the $100 IMO…

We wanted to see Shane. I think that was the case with most everybody at the show. And the man came through! I was surprised…McGowan made it through the set and sounded amazing. He’s still got the pipes. Of course, he was sloshing beer around a bit towards the end of the show, but I was impressed and it was one of the best shows I’ve seen. The Tabernacle was packed. So much so, that it was difficult to find a place to stand without security asking you to move. Which they asked us on several occasions. Mik and I ended up going to the floor and though it was sweaty, at least no one was asking us to move. Just slamming into us…but that’s fun.

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I’m one of these folks who came in late to the game. I got 69 Love Songs a couple of years ago and realized The Magnetic Fields was a great band. I never really expected to see the band live anywhere. I thought they’d broken up. Fortunately for me, they went on tour this year, and though they didn’t play any of the songs I was hoping to hear – songs I’m familiar with – they put on a great show.

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So, I can now cross-off on my list of things to do in life, “See Tom Waits live!” Living in Ohio for most of my life, I really didn’t think it would happen. I had the unfortunate luck of missing Tom at House of Blues Cleveland last year. I had simply forgotten to check one of my throw-away email accounts that was getting Ticketmaster updates and missed the pre-sale. So, of course, all the tickets were gone by the time I figured out what was going on (basically, I missed the pre-sale, logged-on to Ticketmaster the morning tickets went on sale publicly and was ready to go at 10am but my one attempt at exactly 10am was not good enough to get a single ticket!) And they were sold out from then on…unless you had $400 to shell out on eBay.

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This was my second AIGA event at Zoo Atlanta, a place I now know to be THE ZOO in Atlanta. Perhaps I am wrong. Anyone reading this, please set me straight, otherwise. Like the Sagmeister event, I stopped at the Neighborhood Bar just north of Grant Park. It was, like before, the magnet for the hipsters with their brats. It’s annoying to be there since I’m like the lone wolf just trying to get a little buzz on and the young parents are eyeing me like I’m there to abduct their child. I mean, come on, it’s a BAR. I’m over this quickly, though I’m aware of the parents disquiet when one of their kids gets too close. I’m reading Wired magazine…I could see if it was Playboy or Hustler…
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The Stefan Sagmeister event was held at Zoo Atlanta. As a noob to the ATL, I wasn’t sure if this was the Atlanta zoo or some other place just given the name of zoo. There are morning zoos, etc. Perhaps the name referenced some other place, like an estuary. I wasn’t sure so I googled it. I discovered that Zoo Atlanta was located in Grant Park and the exact location I was looking for the Coca-Cola Amphitheatre was here as well. I had asked some folks at work, mentioning the Coca-Cola name and I drew blank stares. Perhaps I am an idiot, I thought to myself. As someone who is involved in the industry of branding I wonder whether it’s getting to be confusing. Names change…I went to see Radiohead at the Lakewood Amphitheater. When I mentioned it to ATL locals they said, “Oh yeah, that’s at Hi-Fi Buys.” “No, my ticket says, ‘Lakewood Amphitheater.” “No, that is Hi-Fi Buys…you’ll see when you get there.” Sure enough, the exit signs off the interstate were labeled, “Hi-Fi Buys”, and not, “Lakewood Amphitheater.” Well, whatever. I made it to the show. I could not care less the name of the joint.
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This was a great AIGA event sponsored by Mohawk and Mac Papers. It was held at the Mac Papers Creative Design Center a great place to find not only Mohawk paper but a lot of others as well. As a newcomer to Atlanta, these events are a great way to meet and network with people in the design community. I also learn to find my way around Atlanta! I’m still not used to the SW and NW streets with identical names…
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Wow. This was a great presentation by Adobe Director of Platform Evangelism, Ben Forta. Flex 3 is about to be released publicly and Adobe has gone to great lengths worldwide to promote it and it’s sister product, Air, a new app that works as a desktop application connected to remote servers. Air is something like the Flash player that installs on your machine locally and can accept content locally or remotely. There are already some examples on the Adobe Air pages.

The Flex 3 Builder has until now been available to the public as a beta application. Considering this tour Adobe’s Flex 3 Builder product should be out in a matter of months if not sooner. Also worth checking out are Eclipse and Aptana.

It’s no earth shattering revelation that the Green revolution has really hit its stride and I’m grateful for it. Not only does it elevate our sense of responsibility for the environment and our lifestyles, but it also brings a lot of green business opportunities into the limelight. And that to me is really the only way any new ideas are going to get the funding they need to move forward, possibly on a massive scale. Money talks…
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Reagan and I have officially taken up residence in Marietta, GA. Actually, we’ve been here since the 19th of December…almost 2 weeks. Finally got the computers unpacked after a long and unnecessary delay by Comcast. Now it’s time to get back to work!

I’ve added a few web sites to my portfolio page. I plan to continue developing my online portfolio over the next few days and maybe weeks. Some new projects may see the light of day as time allows.

I’m still in the market for work here in Atlanta, so if you like what you see and need someone full time, part time or on a freelance basis, send me a line!

My wife and I are moving to Atlanta…just in time to avoid the Cleveland winter! Anyway, I’m officially in the market for a job doing Graphic Design or Web Design. I’ll be in Atlanta November 19, 20 and 21 for a visit, then permanently in Atlanta December 20th. As you can see, I put my AIGA badge up in the sidebar. Also, a much more extensive portfolio is located here.

I’ve been working at Cleveland.com doing graphic design and web production for the past 19 months. Cleveland.com is the online home of Cleveland’s daily newspaper, The Plain Dealer, and Northeast Ohio’s community newspaper organization The Sun News. I’ve also been busy with my own projects—like this website—implementing CSS and learning PHP, working with feeds and database content. I’m also a print designer and I know a little Flash. It’s fun stuff!

Don’t let this opportunity to hire a great asset to your team get away! I expect to be overwhelmed with offers so make your offer early and make it good! Contact me.

Download my resume here.

I’ve managed to get my iCal and Google calendars merged. In some respects it’s unnecessary to use both Calendars but I like using iCal when I’m at home on my Mac. It looks much nicer than Google Calendar and I don’t have to log-in to Google.

The major advantage of using Google Calendar (IMO) is that it’s online so it’s accessible from any computer on the Internet (well, assuming it’s not blocked by your company…). The big drawback is that it is ugly. The problem with using iCal exclusively is that to publish it online you need a .Mac account or some other way to serve it that seems to be a pain in the ass. I hope Leopard addresses this issue. And if not, when I get some free time I may figure out how to use OSX’s Apache server to get this thing working…

Anyway, if you log-in to your Google Calendar you can get the RSS feeds for the calendars—personal and/or public—then subcribe to those calendars in iCal. That’s it.

Found this nice little font while reading about RSS feeds on the Wordpress site. Silkscreen is a good font for small text and it is available for Mac, Windoze and Linux. The best part is that it is free to use! (Silkscreen created by Jason Kottke…thanks Jason!)

I had the good fortune of seeing Charles Burnett’s, Killer of Sheep, at the Cleveland Cinematheque this past Monday. If it wasn’t for the lengthy introduction of the film I would have missed the first 15 minutes due to Cleveland’s construction detours, which seem to be every other block.

The film was nothing short of amazing. Sometimes I read the descriptions of films and they come off as lukewarm…I felt this way when reading the description of Killer of Sheep, but it was so highly recommended I figured I had to see it.
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After much ado, I’ve officially moved my blog. Just over to www.house-of-wonder.com/blog. I’m back in the game now…

One of the things I’ve been working on is installing multiple blogs within a single database. That was the reason for the move. I have a couple of other blogs—somewhat off topic—that I’d like to get moved from their present locations onto my server within my site. My plan is to create several subdirectories then install WordPress into those directories. The other part of this is directing the domain names that I have registered to those subdirectories. It’s something I haven’t done…one of these days!!

Well, it seems that fortune is not smiling on designers in Cleveland who also happen to be major fans of Zappa. Helvetica, the movie about the font, is scheduled to screen at the Cleveland Cinematheque the same night as Zappa Plays Zappa comes to Cain Park. And of course, Michael Beirut is coming to the Cinematheque screening which is really the kicker since I had planned on skipping the film for the show but now I have reservations about that plan…I missed Dweezil and the gang when they performed last fall in Akron, so I really want to see them. But skipping out on the film and Michael Beirut really annoys me. Well, I have a few weeks ahead to decide on Plan B…

I know what you’re thinking. I thought the same thing and pictured a nice chunk of wasabi, some soy sauce and a cold beer. This Yellowtail is different. Check it out, though. It’s a neat project and fun to play with. I found this on Say No to Crack.

I was intrigued by the little pictures in the Cleveland Cinematheque film schedule and so went to see a trio of documentaries last night. Yes, I sat through 3 movies at the Cinematheque. I’m surprised that one has to pay at all for the last film if you’ve managed to endure the first 2. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the Cinematheque, it’s not the most comfortable place to see a film. We’re talking wooden theater seating. Not a lot of chance to fall asleep there. Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t posted here for a bit and I realize it’s because I’ve been busy with things like work and reading a lot of feeds. Though I really like Netvibes, it has become something of a time vampire…

So, today while clicking around, reading blogs and such, I came across Flock a new web browser…and it’s web 2.0, dude! Well, I don’t know if it rains this weekend maybe I’ll look into it more this weekend. Seems intriguing, though I must admit, I’m easily intrigued.

While reading my former teacher Al Wasco’s blog I discovered Stumble Upon. Another way to waste time because instead of finishing your work and shutting off the computer to do things besides chatting, blogging or playing Bejeweled while Skyping your friend in the UK, you can spend countless hours with Stumble Upon an open invitation to hop down the rabbit hole and follow links aimlessly…it really is a blast !

This is devastating news…I suppose the rational mind reasons, “Well, he was old and lived a full life.” But it’s hard to imagine such an iconoclast and important person removed from the scene. He was someone very special and the world will miss him dearly.

Is your content boring? Maybe your style needs a workout. Check out Exercises in Style, Matt Madden’s website featuring some creative ways to consider displaying your content.

Oh, and by the way, this site has nothing to do with style sheets…or does it?

I started playing with Netvibes last week some time and lo and behold it’s been featured on Lifehacker today. One thing I’ve been looking for is a way to get feeds and other info I like onto a start page. Something a bit more than a feed reader. Netvibes seems to do the trick.

I encourage anyone looking for something along these lines to check out Netvibes. Just log in with an email address and start customizing. More info can be found here.

This menu looks cool. Don’t have a use for it right now, but you never know!

I’m always on the lookout for tutorials that give simple explanations to working with CSS. This one has it. From BarelyFitz Designs.

Anyone interested in Web 2.0 should check out this link. It gives a decent idea of what Web 2.0 means and is a nicely put together video to boot. My teacher Al Wasco mentioned this vid on his blog.

I got the Highslide javascript working on my portfolio page. Definitely check it out! It was easy once I decided to make the portfolio a static HTML page (I couldn’t get it to work right otherwise with my limited knowledge of PHP). If anyone is struggling with this same situation, please let me know!