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sxsw day 5

This day passed by too quickly, and began a little late. I walked in on the last half of Web Typography Sucks with Mark Boulton and Richard Rutter. Sadly, I missed the meat of it. Luckily, they released the notes and slides from it! I think the short of what they were saying is typography for the web is grossly misused and ugly. I agree wholeheartedly and I’m part of the problem. Time to change that!

Listening to Shaun Inman and John Gruber talk about their freelancing lives made me realize that I’m not sure that I’m ready for something like that with web design. I wonder if I an translate that with other areas in which I’m interested? It takes a very big dedication to what you’re doing and discipline that I sometimes lack (thanks to mainstream media and my lack of will to stop that medium from polluting my mind).

After a few sessions this afternoon, we make our way to to the airport for a long ride back home to LA. I shall be buying myself one little pint of Blue Bell Ice Cream before I go! Oh Blue Bell, how I shall me ye.

SXSW 2007 is an event I hope I can make an annual trip (assuming I don’t end up moving to Austin for some reason in the near future). Lots of great people I met, lots of great conversations and ideas discussed, and hopefully some great networking in the future.

sxsw day 4

By far the best day I’ve had here.

The first panel featured the ever so popular web designer Zeldman among others. It was cool hearing everyone’s ideas about how to get unstuck from being stuck in design. The next panel was all about online magazines, such as The Onion, Salon.com, and College Humor. Very entertaining and interesting to hear how they built their communities.

Probably one of the biggest events for yesterday was being able to see Dan Rather up close and personal. He spoke for about an hour and fifteen minutes about the state of journalism, the differences of journalists today, and how online media affects his job. I sat right behind Patrick Norton of dl.tv, formerly of TechTV as well as the guys who created chacha.com (very cool web search site if you haven’t checked it out).

Jason Santa Maria and Andy Clarke gave a very enlightening panel comparing a heist to design. It was one of the most packed rooms of any that I had been in the whole week.

I ended my proper day at a future of internet video panel featuring among others Kevin Rose from Diggnation. The panel looked a little tired and Kevin was probably hung-over, and yet he brought beers for all five of them to drink as they discussed what they see happening to video online.

We ended our day bar hopping amongst 4 different bars, talking to various people from various backgrounds. It was extremely cool and interesting to be able to have so many great conversations with so many talented people! Sadly, we had to end the night just after 1am since we were both worn out.

sxsw day 3

Day 3 was very unproductive. After completely missing the first session, I barely made any appearance at the 2nd session. We tried to get some business cards made up at Kinkos, but after just spending too much money on paper, we felt we had done nothing productive so we left.

My first real session was at 3:30pm, which is 4 sessions into the day. So I attended only 2 sessions and made quick appearances at 2 others.

After the awards ceremony last night, we both decided to call it a night. So I was asleep by 11pm. Kinda sad to realize, but I’m also kinda glad because a couple of hours later, it was pouring outside with a tornado warning in the county. I didn’t bother waking up to check the news so I feel sleep quickiy after waking up.

Day 4 is turning out to be much more productive already.

sxsw day 2

Daylight savings bit me in the arse. We’re now both late to our sessions for the day! D’oh!

After a very early start to the day to get our badges and bags full ‘o crap, we made it to 5 sessions yesterday. It started out with seeing 3 very prominent people in design, Molly Holzschlag, Eric Meyer, and Doug Bowman, and one Microsoft engineer for Internet Explorer, Chris Wilson. It was interesting to hear the decade of CSS and how each of them started with it. It goes to remind you that even if you are watching web celebrities we all come from the same place. Knowing that Meyer still gets confused by display: inline is comforting! This was probably my favorite session of the day.

The next session was with Jason Santa Maria and Rob Weychert talking about inspiration. It’s not that I didn’t know most of what they said, but I think going to get a review of things is a great way to refresh yourself and your mind. And they gave me a really cool idea for a party! : Make up a really wacky theme that everyone has the dress up for, do a lot of promotional items, market it correctly, then film it and have a blast. It’s really interesting to see how these people live there lives.

Texas barbeque for lunch was just what I needed.

The rest of the day was less design oriented as I listened about tags, such as those you do on flickr or del.icio.us, about video blogging, and then I jumped around for the last session of the day between three panels.

The video blogging panel featured most TechTV alum including Patrick Norton, as well as the CEO of Diggnation Jay Adelson. It was cool not only to see them but to hear them talk about where things should be headed with video blogging. I think there will probably coexist regular TV and online programming so that they’re more closely tied together.

After bar hopping all night and getting to see the infamous Ze Frank, we decided to call it an early night on account of daylight savings. Despite an earnest effort to get up in decent time, my phone clock decided to revert back to the wrong hour, forcing my alarm to be a phone call.

“Are you awake yet?”

No.

“It’s 9:30”

Ze Frank

sxsw day 1

After more than three years of knowing about it, I have finally made it to one of the most revered events in web design: South By Southwest (SXSW). The conference I’m attending is technically the Interactive portion, geared towards interactive media that exists online, but it has turned out that a huge majority of the participants of Interactive are standards based web designers.

Delay after delay after delay has worn us out. After an hour plane delay in Houston, our luggage didn’t even make the delayed flight. So we picked up our late luggage to wait on our late shuttle to the hotel. An hour and a half later, we finally made it hours behind schedule to our rooms. I’m patient, but I don’t enjoy being behind on something I’d like to get the most out of.

After enjoying a nice, long dinner at one of my favorite Tex-Mex restaurants, Pappasitos, we headed down to Buffalo Billiards on 6th Street. The majority of its patrons, if not every patron, was a SXSWi participant! Sadly, we felt left out due to our late arrival and not having time to register for our badges. Still, it was really nice to be around great a lot of talented designers. I did recognize a few faces, met with old coworkers and met a few nice new people. I can’t wait to mingle more with others and it’s going to be wonderful listening to and being around such amazing talent.

new layout

In case you’re in you RSS reader, after three years of windmills I decided it was time to change. I love them, I might bring them back but right now, I’m proud of this design and spend long hours for the past week trying to get this up live. There will probably be rough edges here and there, but you get the point.

So what’s missing? photos and illustration. I’ll try my best to get to that when I can but for now, just enjoy the new eye candy.

It’s only the beginning…

good company makes for good times

the loud music, the crowded spaces, the sweaty gross bodies all moving around, the sticky floors, the dirty and wet bathroom floors, the attitudes, the rejection

I’ve never been much of a fan of dance clubs. I don’t know how to dance without looking stupid. I feel awkward going up to girls who I don’t know. There are so many excuses I can make for why I’ve never gone clubbing very much.

I feel like the one fun person who doesn’t have fun sometimes. I’m all about being with friends, partying and enjoying my company. But I’m often uncomfortable in social situations where I don’t have much control or feel as though I’m not very desirable. And that’s precisely what clubs make me feel like.

I also haven’t been clubbing too often with fellows who are around my age, mostly just my gal friends who are strictly platonic. And being out with platonic lady friends at a club is really just a waste of time since you’re not the focus of their desires.

So why do I put myself in situations where the outcome is usually against my favor? Because I love going out and being social. I love music. I love the lights. I love watching humans and how they interact. I love laughing and smiling and feeling good.

[wow, I didn’t realize Stevie Wonder had so many hits that I know but didn’t realize they were his. Superstition, Sir Duke, I Just Called to Say I Love You…]

Being out and about is essential to me. I need my alone time, where I can have self-reflection and get personal things done but being amongst friends and just taking in the evening is a such a wonderful feeling. I feed off of other people who bring out the best in me, and getting crazy in public is a wonderful way of releasing yourself.

I’m much more of a bar person than a club person. But if I had my choice, I’d probably just stay at home with friends and relax. Low key is nice after a long, busy weekend of social distractions.

me in a month

2007 began very loudly, very quickly as I danced the night away on a dance floor at a club in Hollywood. It was unlike all others as I didn’t have a ready available clock to watch the seconds slowly tick away. With my earplugs in (I’ve long ago decided that loud noises are bad for my ears; they’re more sensitive than they used to be), the partial inaudible noises of the music mixed with the loud blare of the microphone was how I heard the countdown. Then, before I could gather myself, the new year was upon me.

The next few days were work as usual. However, it seems my ringing was far more than just in my ears. It turns out I rang in the new year not only unusually at a crowded club, but somehow I undesirably acquired the flu. If there’s ever an excuse to extend all the vacation time I had from the holidays, it was a sickness which didn’t seem to want to go away.

I spent the rest of my first weekend of 2007 in bed feeling the angst of sickness and the heat from all those nasty germs floating throughout my body. In a way, it was my last hurrah from a busy December of 2006, allowing me to recover and gather myself to prepare for all the big things to come.

At work, I continue to troll away at a redesign project that began in April of 2006. One that has carried on and on mostly because of indecisiveness and lack of authority. Unfortunately, these elements were beyond most of my control and I did what I thought I should to progress this tardy project. Finally, the project manager stepped up and took charge, allowing me to be what I was hired to be: the designer. It was a nice change of pace for me as I was increasingly burnt out from a lagging, stressful last half of the last year.

January has seen new beginnings in my life. I’ve made numerous new friends, went through many exciting experiences and already made some lasting memories. Note to self: keep in mind when a playoff football game is on the small screen on a Tuesday night. It is not live, nor is it wise to question the bartender’s choice of a basketball game to fill the big screen.

“Some sports fan,” he boasted as he and his barfly cronies laughed. It only took me a few moments to realize my silly mistake.

One Superbowl later, it’s now February and I watch the clock’s seconds tick away.

Big things are on the horizon and it’s only the beginning.

how to really earn good interest

Ever since I started a real job, I’ve managed to save a lot of my money. I’ve started a Roth IRA, a high interest savings account, and I contribute to my company’s 401k match. I live in generation impulse and we tend to go with the flow. “If it feels good, go for it.” “Why save when you can have fun now?” “I’ll die before I even see my savings so why bother?”

So how have I managed to get all of these started? It took a lot of patience and sacrifice. I wish I could pass on my will to others my age because it’s sad to see so many people suffer for things they don’t need to. But we all learn in our own ways.

For those of you who want a better savings account, I can help you get $25 just for signing up with ING Direct. Stop using your bank’s savings account and start using one with high interest like ING Direct (4.5% APY). You’ll thank me in January.

resolution for 2007

I don’t make resolutions because they’re silly. Good intentions and great in theory, but usually bad in practice. However, my one and only resolution I think I’m willing to commit to is that I want to travel out of country again this year. Anyone up for a good time?

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