http://www.myspace.com/thesetsband

Check it.

I have been too overwhelmed lately by all the projects I have going on right now. Trying to finish up work on a freelance project that has taken far too long to complete, keep my 9-5 job happy and juggle all the things that come up with school. From this experience though I have made a promise to myself: I will never take on another Flash project similar to this one ever again. Ever. Within that statement I am including dynamic text integration and styled links within that text. Nor am I sure that I will want to work with this company in the future. Just too much fucking stress.

I’m really excited for the cyclejerks gang-bang race that’s coming up this weekend. Three straight days of beer and bikes. I’m hoping to win some of that sweet shwag they’re givin away.

It’s true, white people like San Francisco; and I guess I’m white as white. I had an amazing time flying around this beautiful city on my beloved bicycle. I was able to document most of the trek via the shitty camera built into my phone. The pictures are pretty questionable quality, but better than nothing. Quick rundown: Went to the Pacific Ocean, hung out in beautiful Golden Gate Park, went to Amoeba Music, rode across the Golden Gate Bridge, rode in San Fran. Critical Mass, checked out Haight (kinda disappointing), ate amazing food…the list goes on.

More to come as I clean up some more pictures in Photoshop.

Nearly a year ago I won 2 round-trip tickets to anywhere in the continental US in a bike-to-work raffle sort of challenge; got them from the Cherry Creek Bike Rack in Denver. Well, I’ve finally gotten around to making some plans, and I’m going to San Francisco with my friend Tyler. We’re leaving in the morning on March 27th and getting back sometime in the night on April 1st. I’ve never been before, but I hear it’s a cool place and I’m assured I will en joy it immensely. Fuck yeah.

I made this site for my database class using some simple PHP and MySql. It’s a list of (not quite) 50 of my favorite albums of all time. I have to try to finish it and get it into my portfolio. After looking over the code I remember that I used Photoshop to slice this site into CSS, so it’s absolutely fucking horrible.

And I upgraded wordpress. woweee.

I was scanning through Brave New World trying to find a certain passage to use in a paper, and came across a few lines I had highlighted, mostly from Brave New World Revisited. Thought I’d share so as to not forget them. All credit to Aldous Huxley.

“We know that the pursuit of good ends does not justify the employment of bad means. But what about those situations, now of such frequent occurrence, in which good means have end results which turn out to be bad?”

“Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in the calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy…”

I could probably fill this whole damn blog with ‘em.

I started my new job this previous week, and unlike my old friend Mr. Coe, I’m really enjoying it. It’s temporary for now, but I can see this leading to some huge opportunities if everything goes well. As for now I’m doing entirely front-end web development - taking concepts and bringing them to life. Most satisfying though is that it is a really relaxed atmosphere, they play great music, I don’t have to dress like a corporate-button-down-douche any more, it’s only a couple minute bike ride from my house and for the most part I work with some pretty cool people. It’s only been two days and I feel like I’ve already learned so much from the experience, so I can’t wait to see what this brings.

On a somewhat less joyous note I need to finally finish Kate’s website. It’s been almost a year now since I started work on her site and I have yet to get it in a ‘final state.’ Being the first site I ever wrote almost entirely in AS2.0 I made a lot of mistakes and have learned some lessons that at this point I can’t figure out how to fix. It’s pretty disappointing, but I will probably have to re-code the entire site in an entirely different way. I should keep a positive mind though, I could come up with something that I am a hundred times more happy with. I met with her today and she said the only thing keeping her from bitching me out is my Nebraska sweetness…guess it counts for something once in a while.

Now for another positive note, progress is going well on Sexy Pizza. I have built out all of the pages except for the menu and need to finish styling some things, but everything is going swimmingly. I wish I was this confident about the NAMLO site.

I am as done with theme-ing this blog as I will be anytime soon. There are a few small things to change, but I need to step away from it for a while and come back with fresh eyes.

My boss has asked me to create a WordPress blog for one of our clients, and said that there could be many more to come. This could possibly turn into something lucrative.

Also: I have decided to create a site for my friend’s possible business, ‘Sexy Pizza’ which will hopefully be located where Pizza Vera is now on 11th Ave. in Capital Hill. I say possible because I don’t know for sure if the business transaction will go through, but I think I could have some fun with this and if it does, he’ll have a sweet website.

Update: I talked to my buddy today and he informed me that the deal went through, so Sexy Pizza will be a reality sometime around April 1st. I’ve been working for a while today on a mock-up of the site, and here’s a shot of what I have so far. I’m excited to be able to create a whole campaign for him, get the word out on Sexy Pizza.

I have finished up most of the work on the site that I have been putting a lot of time into lately, the portfolio for my friend Jozy Brink’s photography. He has some really cool action sports and landscape photos, so you should check them out and then let me know what you think of the site.

I love creating photography portfolios, because there is always some challenge as to how to present the pictures. I want to make the photos be the emphasis of the site and speak for themselves. Here’s the address: Jozy Brink Photography (www.brinksphoto.com)

I have always been a huge fan of the Slackers, but recently my tendency towards ska music has waned. With that aside I found this album, the only dub album released by the group, and have really come to love it. They nail the dub sound with heavy bass lines, chill melodies and great laid-back horn parts. It makes me wish the Slackers would release a few more dub albums. ‘Propaganda Dub’, ‘Make Me Smile Dub’ and ‘Dub For Ira’ are a few of my favorite tracks on this album.

Check It Out if You Like: Bob Marley, Sublime, The Toasters