tbbjr graFX - in a Graphic Artist/Web Designers Off Time

Picking the right customers

2008-02-03T11:26:00.000-05:00

Turning a potential customer away in a business situation was never a good idea to me, but recently I have seen that when you choose your customers wisely the benefits to you and your customers can be great. I guess I always looked at work as work and you need to be after the dollar and my personal business as a way to help others and a way for me to have fun and learn... A little conflicted I know but it made sense to me.

Personally I have been doing web sites for almost 10 years now and when I look back on the sites that are still kickin' I see they are the ones I tend to baby and nurture. Sites I do on the side tend to be for people and products I truly care about.

While the June Jam site is a bit outdated as far as code and layout - it is what the customer wants and I understand that because I talk to that customer daily. He really doesn't want or need to grow the June Jam concert any larger than it currently is. I tend to want more and more but they like being able to manage the shows with a personal feel. People get to know one another and tend to bring friends.
The Jazz and Blues Festival has actually come a long way in just 1 year. Their second annual festival is coming up and the site has been updated and taking orders via paypal. They are starting small and building popularity. The site is averaging 20 unique visitors daily and out of those 12 are looking at the tickets page. I am sure this will increase as the event gets closer. I have been working with the customer daily for the last couple of weeks and making huge improvements to the content and code of the site. While the customer tends not to be technically savvy they understand the basics of what it is that I am trying to achieve through coding the site ("search engine stuff")
My wife's site www.anitasgarden.com kicks ass and takes names - an awesome example of letting her do her own thins and exploring the possibilities. Anita is content, right now, blogging about her life, pets and children... nothing wrong with that, right? Well she is also stock piling recipes and talking about selling products... will she do it? Maybe, but in her own time. The site has unending potential and now she has total control over the content.
My friend Albert Alfaro and his family of Drabbits (www.imaginariumgalleries.com). This was me finding something I truly had a passion for and running with it. Albert and his family build and sell these awesome works of art that you just can't find at Wal-Mart. I can honestly say that his passion is contagious. When we initially went to the PA Renaissance Fair and saw these creatures we were like wow! those are pretty cool. But then we talked with Albert first hand and watched as he created a leg for one of the puppets. Anita and I were engrossed in the process and noticed right away that Albert seemed to get the most enjoyment out of seeing the expressions and hearing the comments that the visitors blurted out while walking past. I decided that anyone with that cared that much about his art needed as much support as I could muster.

At work we are focused on some really large customers and becoming more personable with them. The idea that 10 large customers that truly understand the benefits of working with Inclind, Inc are better than 100 customers who don't. Crazy way to approach a business? Apparently not. We are 14 employees strong with 2 seasonal interns who help in the summer, but it doesn't seem that big... Its like an extended family environment where all the kids get along. We recognize each others strengths and really work well as a team. Of course I am the insane one.... Loud, obnoxious at times - but funny as hell and proud of it.

Anita's Garden Redesign Launched

2007-10-23T20:44:00.002-05:00

After two nights of no sleep I think I finally got Anita's site hooked up and ready to go. We grabbed all the old content that had never been crawled by search engines and posted it as blog articles. This is my first site using nothing more that blogger and google components (widgets). Unfortunately I am not able to use the Blogger Page Layout feature because I host the site via ftp... Not ready to give my wife's site to blogspot yet.

I learned quite a bit about how blogger pulls in the widgets and how all the Blogger tags output to html pages. This is not as easy as it first appears. While you may be able to use one of the readymade templates with out too much issue - there is very little room to modify the information. Since this is Anita's site I decided to use Blogger as a Content Management system for her. So the limitations didn't seem as though the would effect the site too much.

I chose Blogger over WordPress because of the ease of use with Google widgets and since Blogger is owned by Google it stands to reason that they would play nicely with one another. They do work together pretty darn good - definitely room for improvement but solid integration all around. I found myself involved with all sorts of possibilities (calendars, custom search, youtube and more). I will probably work in additional widgets and components as time goes on.

There were a few Blogger Hacks needed along the way and a lot of trial and error. I did not sleep or eat Friday night to Saturday afternoon... In the zone you know.... After a power nap (4 hrs) it was back to work and making improvements as I went along. I did go to bed Sunday morning at 4:30am. Spent some time with the family Sunday morning and back to it Sunday afternoon. The layout was done the template was working but post positioning and linking wasn't working real well. Not to mention the gallery and contact form being out side the blogger format.

In order to get the Flash component of the Gallery to display always at the top I had to be very creative with the code. Not sure I would call it a hack but it works and validates. Basically I wanted to include a swf file only on the photogallery page (which I created with the Label/Tagging system in Blogger). I tried an iframe which was a suggestion from a blogger forum... Not a fan of iframes... just felt wrong and not as clean as it should be. Next was a virtual include which would have worked except I didn't want the blog to be shtml or php for search engine purposes. Almost gave up and just made the entire thing php. Then at about 10pm Monday night while watching Indianapolis destroy Jacksonville it hit me. Javascript could probably do what I wanted with out too much overhead. After a couple of hours of research and 3 samples of javascript that did parts of what I wanted to achieve... I wrote my very own javascript solution:


BEGIN --- This is the example code:

//This javascript is included in the head
URL = window.location.href;
isgallery = (URL.indexOf('gallery') > -1); // true if URL contains gallery

//This is in the blogger template just inside the content area
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
<!-- <![CDATA[
if (isgallery) {
document.write('<h2>Photo Gallery<\/h2> <div id="gallery"> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> AC_FL_RunContent( "codebase","http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,28,0", "width","480", "height","394", "title","photogallery", "src","***movie url here***", "quality","high", "pluginspage","http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash", "movie"," ***movie url here***" );<\/script> <\/div>');
}
// ]]> -->
</script>

END --- This is the example code:

Please note I am not a programmer and this took me a lot longer than it probably should have but I haven't really found a downside to this solution as of yet. The script is small - at most 3k... I know that has to load on every page but 3k is not enough for me to worry over. I know some hard core coders are shaking there heads right about now. Give me a better solution with out using php or virtual includes and I will take it under consideration. Maybe a nudge to Blogger to implement some features for those of us who choose not to host our sites on the blogger servers. I am too new at this to start making demands to Blogger.... give me a week to kick the tires.... Did I mention I am also a usability tester :)

Getting Noticed - New site design getting some props on the web

2007-10-11T23:34:00.000-05:00

Some of you may have noticed that my site recently got overhauled... I decided to build a better mousetrap of sorts and clean up my css and xhtml to show off my abilities a bit and drive traffic to associate sites (Inclind Inc., June Jam, DE Jazz & Blues etc.). I wasn't sure if it would help but knew it couldn't hurt. Since I have redesigned this site it has been featured on several sites (screenalicious, designsnack, w3csites.com , proWebArt, MostInspired ... )and seems to be spreading. While not quite the digg effect it is still driving a lot of traffic to my site and therefore increasing the exposure of my associates and other sites I have done.

I am in the process of redoing my wife's site now so stay tuned to www.anitasgarden.com. We are deciding now what will be on the site but the design is already established and approaching roll out status. It too will be laid out to the current industry standards including css 3 and xhtml. So all you IE6 users be forewarned - upgrade, switch to Firefox or suffer.

Since I am on the subject of Microsoft products - I thought I would take a look at the microsoft.com site and see how it matches up with the current industry CSS and XHTML standards. I plugged their url into the w3c validator and guess what happened.... it failed!

You know mac folks get a bad wrap - PC users see us a zealots and think that we think we are a better class of computer users.... they simply have now idea of what it is like to have an OS and applications dedicated to exceeding industry standards. We as users are no better than our fellow man - we are just betted equipped.

Wine Harvest Weekend at The PA Renaissance Faire

2007-10-08T22:53:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knows me - well knows we love the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair, Wine, Music and parties! This past weekend we put them all together and had a blast. The entire family traveled the 4 hour hike to sample the wine and hear Albannach play. Yup, 4 hours.... We were less than a mile away from the entrance and traffic stopped for 45 minutes. We though there may have been an accident and traffic was being diverted. No such luck. This was the largest crowd I have ever witnessed at the Renaissance Faire. It too us 45 minutes to basically get into the parking area. Crazy.

When we entered the Faire we could hear the music of Albannach -

"Albannach - (Jamesie Johnston, Jacquie Holland, Donnie MacNeill, Kyle Gray, Aya Thorne, Davey “Ramone” Morrison) Born and bred in Scotland, Albannach is far, far from just another Scottish Pipes & Drum band. Their style of music is exciting, energetic and driving and promises to leave you begging for more!"

It is nearly impossible to sit still while this band plays live. You may say but its bagpipes and drums... All I can say is that if you enjoy music and have any primal blood in you - you will be moved. This band is high energy on stage - jumping around with a huge base drum strapped to you is very impressive. They are all extremely talented and worth a listen but if you can I would highly recommend seeing them preform live.

Wine was a plenty but long lines and crowds of people kept us sober most of the day. We did enjoy a glass while walking the grounds. Many grape/wine oriented events this year but we found ourselves just enjoying the atmosphere for the most part. It was a beautiful day to be outside and with friends and family.

We stopped several time to see our good friend Albert Alfaro - Master Puppet Maker from www.imaginariumgalleries.com but each time the shop was full to the hilt. We will catch up with him next time I am sure. This was our first time coming home without a new puppet.... we have over 30 so I guess we have reached a limit of sorts. My wife was looking at a few but we left empty handed. We will be back Albert no worries:)

While there I approached the resident walking stick authority and he seemed genuinely impressed with my attempt at a walking stick. He asked me how much I would sell it for and of course I said I would not sell it. The he asked how much I thought it was worth, how many hours I had tied up in the carving, etc. He then suggested that the true value of my time and effort was in the neighborhood of $400. I never stopped to think of the value while I was carving my wine harvest walking stick. I just enjoyed the time with my daughter and solitude. Being able to focus on one thing without any outside expectations. I will probably be doing another sometime soon.

We stayed for the Finale in Song for the first time and might I say.... WOW! We will stay for this from now on. All the characters from the day come together for a show stopping extravaganza. Worth the price of admission by itself.

The final 3 weekends will be "Halloween Daze & Spooky Knights". May I recommend packing up the family and heading to the Shire?

Is it Dead Yet? IE6 and its slow demise

2007-10-02T12:12:00.000-05:00

As a web designer I constantly am running in to compliance issues with Internet Explorer 6. It has been over a year since IE 7 was released and still there is a large percentage of people using IE6. Why? Is it the sheer lack of trust of yet another piece of MS Software... or that there are so many illegal copies of windows running that the new Windows authentication system scares people away. Either way people need to speed up the death of IE6 so designers and developers can move on with cutting edge design and code.

Any where you look on the web you will find site with 2 sets of code: One for IE6 (containing hacks and fixes) and one for the real browsers. Implementing a dynamic site using css2.1+ with png's and positioning that actually work doesn't sound difficult. But by the time you fix the 3px jog, use the htc file to make IE6 display png files correctly, not to mention fixing the position and ability to have mouse overs on div and li tags, you just wasted half a day!

If you are looking to get your site redesigned or build a new site for that matter. The first step in keeping your cost down would be to assist in the demise of Internet Explorer 6 by upgrading you browser. To the designers and developers it really doesn't matter what you upgrade to FireFox, IE7, Opera, or even Safari (relative new comer but built on current standards). Once IE6 falls below 5% there will be no need to continue the madness it is currently above 30%. Take the time to improve your browsing experience and the web designers and developers will make it worth you while.W3 keeps track of browser statistics... lets watch the slow roll together :)

The standards are changing and IE6 is failing more and more. We would love to move forward with CSS3 and have cleaner code (takes less time to load for the end user) so more people can browse quickly and easily.

I am a Mac guy so I have been without Internet Explore for some time now. There really are better solutions. Go get you browsers NOW save money in the future!

Vibes, Vines and Dance at Pizzadili Vineyard

2007-09-30T20:15:00.000-05:00

We had a blast at the Vibes, Vines and Dance fund raiser held Saturday, September 29, 2007. We donated a couple of Anita's hand crafted seasonal centerpieces for the silent auction. The premise of this "party" was to raise money for the Central Delaware Jazz and Blues Fest coming up May 10, 2008.

Pizzadili had a wine tasting set up were several kinds of wine to be sampled - all pretty good for a local winery. We were pretty impressed with the layout of the vineyard and the large pavilion surrounded by a wonderful stream and fountain pond. The store itself was laid out very nicely plenty of room to browse the bottles. We were hoping for a few more options as far as types of wine but it was nice to know we could get a nice dessert wine so close to home.

The event started off a bit slow but picked up a bit once the band started playing. We went to support Mr. Matt (my neighbor, President of June Jam and Co-Producer and Technical Director of Delaware Charitable Music Inc) and the rest of the crew. It is such a worthy cause and as parents we can appreciate what they are doing. Raising money to help out local school music programs with instruments and such. The arts are way too important to let them die on the vine while "No Child Left Behind" fails our society. Let me stop there before politics come into play on my blog--- that would not be good.

I would recommend that all parents with children in school attend the next Central Delaware Jazz and Blues Fest that will be held at Killens Pond State Park right in Felton, Delaware. I mean the price of a ticket $25 gets you a all day pass to hear some great music from both students and jazz and blues veterans. Last years turn out was pretty good but I know there are more people interested in raising money for such a great cause. Hope to see you there.

A Knife, A Tree Limb & Some Vino

2007-09-10T19:45:00.000-05:00

While cleaning up the yard a few months ago I decided to prune a few tree branches and take them to the kindling pile to let them dry out. We have a small fire pit in the back yard and the kids enjoy roasting marshmallows, making smores and chatting around the fire.

Well a few weeks later I found myself needing a bit of quite time so I went out to start a fire and sip a glass or two of a nice Merlot. After a bit of roasting myself I went back to the kindling pile to build up the fire a little and found one of the larger maple tree branches I had taken down earlier. Now, normally I would have broken this branch down and enjoyed another glass of wine... but there was something about this branch and the way it fit my hand. I started snapping of the little branches and figuring our if the stick was hiking material and found it to be quite solid and free of any cracks or major blemishes. So I went inside and got the trusty old carving knife and went to work. The branch was about 2.5 in. diameter so I knew I had my work cut out for me.

After a few hours I had to call it quits. The blisters had blisters and I could feel the onset of the good ole Tennis Elbow coming on (I work behind a desk:). I had removed all the bark and had whittled the stick down to a good 2 in. diameter. I brought the stick inside to show the family and they didn't seem too impressed. So I started thinking what can I do to make this walking stick better.... My lovely wife asked me if I was feeling any better and if I thought another glass of wine would help... LOL Of course it would. At that exact moment it hit me... We enjoy wine, wine making, grapes, we use the vines in the winter for making ornamental pieces. Why not have a vine carved into the walking stick.

I did a little research to see exactly what type of leaf I could use and drew a couple of preliminary sketches - whoa me with a pencil in hand - That got my families attention. My daughter announcing to the entire house "Dad's drawing!". They tend to get on me about not drawing enough. My oldest daughter says on the computer doesn't count... I tell her I make money with a mouse in a month then I ever did with a pencil. Man how far I have come.... Anyway, it was getting late and after 4 glasses of wine I thought it might be a bad idea for me to use sharp instruments.

The next day I came home from work with a mission. I started whittling and gouging until I realized that having a simple outline of a leaf and grapes was just not good enough I wanted dimension. So needless to say it was a late night. I didn't realize just how hard Maple wood could be. I had the rough shapes started but I couldn't get the depth I was looking for with the tools I had. Ready to throw in the towel and admit defeat I thought about how much time I had already invested and what this simple stick had come to represent to me. There had to be a more effective method. Dremel.

Using my Dremel Drill to sand down the rough edges would take some time but the end result would be pretty good I though. I had no idea how long it would take but it was better than giving up. Every night after work I would come home and spend an hour or two sanding and carving and sanding... to the point I would have to take a shower before sitting on the furniture. Fat man carving = wet saw dust and matted body hair (think you have the visual? You have no idea). Each night Krysta would come outside and sit with me carving he very own walking stick - a nice piece of White Oak from another tree in the yard. We spent the entire week together in the back yard talking, joking, carving and coughing up saw dust. It was great!

Just when I though it was done... A friend at work suggested I carve a vine down the walking stick below the area I had designated for the handle. After looking at it a few moments I agreed and that night - the stick went back under the knife. After a few more days of carving, gouging and sanding I had deemed the "Walking Stick" complete.

The funny thing about doing a work of art for yourself... you never stop to think about the perceived value. When I got all done with the carving I used some watered down acrylic paints to add a wash of color to the leaves and grapes. The I used a light Maple stain and linseed oil to protect it from oils and elements. All-in-all it was a great creative exercise and gave me a good creative kick in the butt not to mention the alone time to empty my thoughts and focus on just getting that one grape to look just right.

Thank you to my family for letting me just carve for a couple of weeks. I love you all.

Daughtry and 12 Stone

2007-07-27T22:44:00.001-05:00

Working for the company(Inclind) that built the Delaware State Fair web site has its benefits. I was able to purchase tickets for my wife and her friends as soon as they were available. Front row center on the aisle for the 12 Stone and Daughtry concert. They had a blast and ended up fighting with some teeny bopper over some drumsticks and a sweaty towel.... well no fight for the towel... we have our own thanks. Anita got up and shot some awesome photos. Its nice for the girls to get a night out once in a while - can't wait for the Delaware Civic Center to get built in Dover so we can have some really good concerts locally.

Hershey Park

2007-07-17T23:26:00.000-05:00

Here we go again! Hershey, PA has got to be our favorite family vacation location. We go every years sometimes twice a year. we usually make a long weekend out of the trip and this year was no exception. Hershey is only 3 hours away (no matter what Anita says we can't make it in 2 hour) and there are lots of shoppes and antiques along the way. We take to scenic route to Hershey - seems to be a theme of ours to take the less beaten path. We try really hard to not have a schedule while on vacation. Sometimes this means we turn off just to stop and walk around. Its really great to not be in a hurry.

This year Hershey opened up the Boardwalk at Hershey. Kind of a throw back to what Hershey Park started out to be. When we entered the Boardwalk area I was surprised to se a Nathan's Hot Dog stand and Billboards for Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Lots of water rides for the kids and some really cool slides for the adults as well. Of course the new rides and slides had some long lines but hey its and amusement park, right? Anita and the kids stood in line for an hour to ride a 45 second slide... eh.

I am more of a coaster fan. Wild Cat, Lightning Racer, Great Bear, Comet, Super D Looper, Sidewinder, Trailblazer and of course Storm Runner. We always enjoy Canyon River Rapids, Tidal Force and Roller Soaker when it gets hot in the afternoon. We usually split the day - In the morning we do all the water rides then change our clothes and do as many coasters as we can.

This year we skipped the Zoo of America so we could squeeze in a couple more rides. We rode the monorail over the zoo just to make sure all the animals knew we were there.

There is so many things to see and do in and out of the park at Hershey you will never be board.

Longwood Gardens

2007-05-13T22:17:00.000-05:00

Another great day trip with the family. We like to go hiking in the local parks but every once in a while you just need to see some pretty flowers. This is a relatively inexpensive trip that we do quite often. Partially to get ideas but mostly just to be with one another in a beautiful setting.

This time we walked the nature trails that go around the back side of the gardens. You can take in all the beauty of the gardens and learn the history of the park in a single day but each time you turn around there is something you didn't see or know before. With Shayna entering into the Environmental Sciences in school we like to show our support by venturing to the orchid section.

The artist in me finds the textures and colors overwhelming. I could spend the entire day shooting photos of the gardens and finding the little know paths and textures that present themselves throughout Longwood Gardens.

New Miata + Bright Sunny Day

2007-05-05T19:05:00.000-05:00

My wife and I decided to hit the road today in the convertible... We had a wedding to go to and decided to ride with the top down on the way. It was the weekend and beach traffic was a bit heavy but hey we are top down and shining in the sun. We got to the outdoor wedding held at Pots Nets, Delaware just in time for the I do's. We then met up with the bride and groom at a nearby restaurant for the reception. Once inside I turned to my lovely wife to kiss her and noticed she was looking a bit pinkish.

Guess she now has to drive back home to even out the burn. LOL. Love you babe.

Myrtle Beach

2007-04-09T20:44:00.000-05:00

It was a long ride but we made it. We wanted to check out the local night life and see what we had been missing by living in good old Delaware. You know Myrtle Beach is a lot like Rehoboth a night. We walked the strip and quickly found ourselves engulfed by spring breakers - must say that was interesting. We walked the beach and stores on the avenue. Again a lot like our beaches in Delaware. We called it a night and went to our condo to get some rest and eat some dinner. It was nice to go back to our condo and have a working kitchen and supplies to actually make real food. Any one who knows us knows how we love to cook and we had been on the road now for 3 days - fast food, take out and snacks were just getting old.

The place was really nice with 2 bedrooms and a large living area, kitchen and balcony looking out on pond with a lit fountain in the center that changed colors as the water sprayed high in the air. Finally we could relax and feel at home on the road. This place was really nice.

The next day the girls got to meet up with their biological father Wayne. He had not seen them for several years. We decided to make an event out of it and go to the Ripley's Aquarium. This place is really awesome but really expensive. There were people inside freaking out about the horseshoe crabs just inside the entrance. Coming from Delaware on a 600 mile road trip the last thing we wanted to see is more horseshoe crabs! Just kidding. The outer part of the aquarium was full of wildlife from all parts of the world. We walked around and watched documentaries on several species. The we entered the underwater aquarium... this was really cool. Huge sharks and rays coming right up to us. Trey was looking for his fishing pole by the end of the journey.

That night we ventured back out to the strip and took a chance on the Ripley's Haunted House. That we may do again. This was well planned out and scary as hell. You go through 4 floors of darkness with chain-saw wielding maniacs chasing you and dark figures just making their presence known. There are points were you can see absolutely nothing and other time you wish you couldn't. This was fun for all... made me scream like a little girl... well made me jump a few times.

South of the Border

2007-04-08T20:17:00.000-05:00

The biggest tourist trap on I95... But a good place to stretch your legs and get some fireworks! Woo Hoo! We actually made it a hiking stop walking around to all the stores with absolutely no intent on buying anything. We had fun messing around with the kids and snapping some blackmail photos of them... well... being kids.

We made it a fun stop and stopped for some ice cream. We have stopped a little shoppes on the way and tried to slow down the trip a bit. We made good time to this point but we really want to enjoy the off the beaten path a bit. So next stop Myrtle Beach.

A Gem of a trip

2007-04-07T18:45:00.000-05:00

On our way to Myrtle Beach we decided to kill some time and stretch our legs at Moorefield Mines in Amelia, VA. The mine is owned and operated by Sam & Sharon Dunaway as a fee-dig site... They allow you to take away what you find. We made a full day of digging in the dirt. We found several types of rocks and gems including Amethyst and Amazonite some quite large. One piece of Ametrine in particular could easily be cut into 3 or 4 really nice jewelry quality pieces. We actually spoke to a Geologist in New Jersey about this piece and when he told us how much it was worth we nearly fell to the floor. We will probably get it cut and design settings for each of the kids so they can have a constant memory of that day.

The morning started very early we arrived at the mine at 9:30 and after being on the road for 4 hours I wasn't sure how much we would be into digging. We started off by going into the gem shop where we could view pictures and specimens of previous finds. The kids started to get a little more excited about digging when the had a look at some of the previous finds... I must say I did too. They actually have large piles of mine wash (left overs from the active gem mine) that they dump into a free range dig site. It was pretty interesting to see people scour the surface for small crystals and large chuck of Amazonite. As a family we decided that we would scour little and dig a lot. At one point it started snowing then sleeting... remember it is April. No worries though we were digging so much we kept warm.

By mid-afternoon it was pretty cold and we took a little break. We went to a SubWay a sort distance from the mine... dirty faces and all. We warmed up a bit and filled the bellies to recharge for a second round of digging. I guess the people are used to seeing out-of-towners covered in muddy clothes because no one took a second look at us... maybe that was fear :)

We made it back to the mine just in time for another front-end loader of mine wash. We found some nice size pieces Cryolite and Agate. Then it was time to dig some more. Thats when I found the large piece of Ametrine. I had only dug down a foot or so and ta da there it was. With a little careful excavation I noticed it was larger than I first thought. I wasn't sure what it was at first but I figured it was at least Amethyst but because of the red clay soil it was hard to make out the the color and clarity of the stone. So off I went to wash my bucket of rocks.

The kids were finding double terminated crystals, Amethyst and Calcite everywhere. Trey and Shayna decided to dig the perimeter of the roped off area and found a bunch of Amethyst. Krysta on the other hand started trying to run-away by digging her way to China. She found some crystals and really nice pieces of Aquamarine.

My wife and I spent about an hour washing and sorting gems, stones and rocks. The water was very cold and painful at times.

All -in-all we had a great time. We finished up around 4pm and hit the road once more. Anita decided to break out the map and find the shortest route to the hotel in Emporia, Va. May I just say... WOW! We were on a road for hours with only 2 other cars spotted... going the other way no less. We came upon a Tank Crossing - No Joke. There was a sign for Tank Crossing on the highway. We had to stop and really make sure thats what the sign really said - sure enough there were grooves in the blacktop were several tanks had crossed. We thought we had entered some really bad 80's B movie. Anita kept reassuring me we were heading the right direction. I believe it was Military Rd - RT153 to RT 46 then RT 58... Highly recommend getting gas before entering this Sunday drive.

Moving Forward

2007-03-23T21:54:00.000-05:00

OK Time for a brain dump!

Well it has finally happened. I always said the only way I would leave my former employer was to be fired (guess I lied). That wasn't do to the perks at work (i.e. free hosting and location) it was more about me enjoying what I do and getting paid well to do it. I had a good run (7+ years) - but the wear and tear of the daily grind of production and customer support just killed my ability to be creative. I quit... I know - I am still creative and talented but I was becoming something other than the graphic artist I really wanted to be. Having no true job description and continuously taking one for the team just got old.

I have started a new position with a title (even though I hate to have a title) Graphic and Illustration Director. What does that mean? Well that means I get to create again with out getting the calls from angry customers and coding all day! The transition hasn't been as easy as I had thought it would be. The new Company (Inclind.com) has a different way of getting things done. It seems to work well for them/us and I am adapting my skill set as best as I can. It is really strange working with such talented people who communicate well and are so willing to give me a hand when I need it. Its back to the old school critiques where you have to have a think skin and some ideas you agree with and some you don't. But, in the end, it is all in the customer’s best interest.

In the past 2 weeks - outside of work; I have set my sites up (all 3) on a new host, changed dns, set-up email accounts, continued the remodel on our bathroom, bought a new car, gone through drama with my mama at the emergency room and killed 2 bottles of wine. Not to mention that I finished up on the www.imaginariumgalleries.com/www.alfaropuppets.com sites, updating bands on the JuneJam site and www.dejazzbluesfest.com to which I have been handling the marketing materials for. By the way Delaware Blues and Jazz Fest is coming up on May 12, 2007 (hope to see you there)!

Did I mention I got a new car? My lovely wife, Anita, has purchased a book of road trips... We have not been in a while because of all the changes happening in our lives but the new car needs to be broken in:) We are trying some new locations up and down the east coast and I am planning to post a brief synopsis of each of our trips along with some photos. We are heading to Georgia in April and Pota Varta probably in August. We will have several day trips between and of course Hershey Park and PA Renaissance Faire will be in there as well.

The other day we had Chinese buffet (not my favorite but a long shot) but the fortunes are usually pretty good for me. This time was no different. This fortune simple said, "Live everyday as if it were a lifetime".

A Family A Faire

2006-10-29T17:19:00.001-05:00

Made our way back to PA for the closing weekend of the PA Renaissance Faire. We had a blast. The women in the family dressed for the occasion but I knew it was going to be too cold to go as my character... Mr Universe... ha just kidding. This is a great day trip event but plan on being exhausted at the end of the night! There are so many great shows to watch and be a part of. From the human chess match to the "Barely Balanced" juggling and danger show. Some of the shows are a little risque so make sure the little ones are too little to understand or old enough to think it gross.

Well any one who knows us knows we have a collection of the Imaginarium Puppets - Well the collection just got a bit larger. My wife was the big winner in the evening raffle. This was after we purchased 2 custom made fairy puppets and 2 $35 eggs. Bringing our total puppet pet count to 22. These creations are awesome. If you get a chance to go to the Faire make sure you visit Imaginarium and watch the master (Albert Alfaro) at work. While there we got a sneak peak at next years creations and talked about creating a web site for Imaginarium Galleries.

The Final Joust was a blood bath with fire and explosions and magic. I have a great deal of respect for those actors and actresses who stayed in character all night even though it was bitterly cold and windy. The lucky ones were wearing thick layers of fur but the wenches had to remain wenches and let me tell you... you could tell it was very cold out.

We usually stay over night and take our time in the area but it was just too cold, wet and windy. And because Anita won the Grand Prize we didn't get to leave until 8:30pm or so. That made for a long ride home but definately worth the trip. See some photos here

Starting a blog

2006-10-20T18:22:00.000-05:00

Not sure how easy this is going to be for me to keep up to date but here it goes. Though I'd start of with the women in my life. When I am at wits end and ready to scream... this is what I come home to. Makes it all seem worth it.

I use to say "control what you can control and the rest is really not for you to control... so no worries". I try to live life with a smile. Latety I have lost sight of that an I am going to use this blog as an outlet for the rambler in me to fix that.