Clutch playing at House of Blues in Atlantic City

While I made the drive for the music, I decided to stay and get a sense of things — maybe even try my luck at a game of chance. I wandered through 6 or 7 of the boardwalk casinos, trying to find the least expensive blackjack table I could, but even the $15 tables I saw at Caesars weren’t low enough for me. I’m just now getting some work hours after two months of being on the sidelines (more on that later), so gambling away chunks of my grocery money is hard to justify. Still, just experiencing the sights and sounds of the casinos, the boardwalk, and the surrounding streets was more than enough excitement for me.

It was more of a trek than I usually make for a show, but I had a blast and would certainly do it again. Hell, maybe I’ll even get up the nerve to sit at one of those blackjack tables next time. Of course, the odds of all that happening go up if the right band(s) decide to book some performance dates.

Just sayin’.

Cool door, huh?  Well, behind it much time and energy has been spent, cranking out work for Weplay.  Work which has been actually getting in the hands of users, too (a small example).  I love that fact.  Too many times in my career I’ve done my best work only to watch it be doomed to the portfolio ghetto; only to be see the light of day on job interviews and those quiet nights when I want to reminisce and die a little inside.

Just sayin’.

I’m also happy to be working behind that door at a pretty exciting time in the relatively short history of the company.  There’s really an exciting air to the place.  The team has built a rather solid base, and has managed to organically grow the traffic and membership numbers, represented with a healthy upward arc.  And this past Tuesday the first of many publicity events took place with Derek Jeter introducing us to the nation on Good Morning America.  I have to say, that was pretty cool.

Just sayin’.

Well, there’s piles of paperwork to sort and receipts to organize.  Taxes to be paid and planning to be done.  Sleep to be missed and so on and so forth.

Not saying goodnight…just sayin’.

My laminate and guide book from FOWD

I mentioned in passing about my attending the Future of Web Design conference in New York yesterday. Thought I’d go into a bit more depth about it, seeing as how it was kind of the impetus for my resurgence of creative energy.

Things were held at Roseland Ballroom, which seemed to be a strange choice of venue. One thing for certain was the need for Roseland to get better folding chairs. By the end of the day there were quite a number of people sitting on the floor because of their ass-numbing quality. But aside from the seats, the occasional awkward speaker and the over-exuberant promotion of the after party, it was a day well spent.

Now, for some of the highlights as I saw them:

Dan Mall talked about the “Experience Layer”, which focuses more on designing for content, style, behavior and experience instead of for certain technologies. Other topics touched upon included emotional design and progressive enhancement. In all, this really realigned my view on how I should be approaching my future designs.

Derek Powazek spoke on “Crowdsourcing” (and has posted his slides). The man knows about the habits of communities and was one of the few fine folks I hoped to model my career on when I was still learning the ins and outs, so hearing him speak was a special treat.

But I’d have to say the most influential speaker in my opinion was Mike Kus, who asked the question of “Whatever happened to the art in design?” — something I have been pondering for some time. His hand drawn slides were probably the biggest single impetus in getting me to get the new design online last night.

In the end, all of what I heard reenforced my belief that this is a great time to be a web designer.  Bandwidth and standards compliance have grown and matured to a point where designers should be free to push themselves more readily, and I think the world will be richer for it.

The show itself was pretty good. I was getting a bit of that alt-country vibe mixed in the usual style I hear in Canadian rock (I kept coming back to The Tragically Hip in my mind, though the vocal styles were nowhere close). The lyrics were very solid and there were some very rock-and-roll moments, such as four men holding their guitars aloft while punctuating the drumbeat with power chords.

I’d suggest some tracks to listen into, but hell if I know at this point. Give me a few weeks to get some material to review and then we’ll talk. Of course, if anyone out there has some recommendations, by all means….

So what do you all think?  Really, I swear this isn’t a simple attempt to fish for compliments to feed my ego — honest!   ^_^

Well, as of today I’m making some fundamental changes to try and keep that from happening again.  Note the return of the Memories section (currently empty, but there none the less), which will be used for long-form event recaps, photos, videos, and the like.

Anyway…

For those of you interested in my travels to Bonnaroo (and why on earth would you be?), you’ll have to bear with me a bit longer for the video and texual recap of my experiences.  But if all you’re looking for is photos of acts like The Police, The White Stripes, Wolfmother, Clutch, Franz Ferdinan, etc. then you’re in luck.  I’ve posted some 733 actual, factual pics up at my Bonnaroo 2007 collection on Flickr.  Enjoy!

Bonnaroo at Sunset – Friday, June 16, 2007

We rented a great house in Windham, Vermont for the weekend, and spent Saturday attacking the slopes at Stratton. My first snowboarding experience outside of the sloped ice rink known as Camleback in the Poconos, and I can say that the drive north was well worth it. There was a world of difference between the facilities and staff: the snow was well groomed, there was almost no wait for the majority of the lifts (the gondolas to the top of the mountain being the one exception), and everyone I dealt with there was helpful and courteous (a trait I experienced throughout the state, actually).

The whole weekend was packed with activity, even when we weren’t on the slopes. The house we were at had a sweet pool table, I brought my Wii and everyone had lots of fun making miniature versions of themselves and flailing around with a remote control, and there was much drinking and music and what not. In fact, the only real down side to the whole affair was when good friend Lauren tore her ACL on the last run of the day on the top of the mountain. But as the ski patrol said, at least it was on the last run and not the first.

All in all, I think the experience went extremely well, and I’m looking forward to doing it again next year. Next time I hope we can fit in two days on the slopes. That way I can still put in more time on the snowboard and still reacquaint myself with those two plank things called skis.

(Note: In the past, I would have waited until — silly notions about chronological posting and all that rot. That would have robbed you all of two extra posts, and I’m trying to avoid that kind of stuff….)

Among the many things I have been neglecting as of late is my Flickr account. Well, they just recently added a nice map feature so you can place exactly where your photos were taken, so I just had to update 3 of my paltry 4 pics (I’m still debating wether to pin-point my apartment on the map, since that’s where the last one was taken).

Mr. Veen goes much more in depth on the topic, along with the time-sucking abilities of geo-locating your photos. I know exactly waht he means, after spending an hour or so just trying to track down this one photo’s location.

For the first time in years, I am no longer a long-haired hippy freak. It took me a long time to finally get the cut job, but it was always in the plans. There was a few late nights during the winter when I almost did the trim job myself with my desk scissors, just for the sense of change it would have brought. Then again, part of this plan when I decided to let my hair grow long was to donate it to Locks of Love, so I wanted to make sure I didn’t do any irrepriable damage to its donatability.

I’m still getting used to the new look — trying not to freak out when I see a different face in the mirror and all that — but so far, so good. I’m really going to enjoy not having to spend an eternity dealing with just my hair when I take a shower. Now I just hope it doesn’t have a Sampson effect on me. Then again, Sampson’s real strength was never really in the hair….

For some reason I woke up at 5 am and stayed up. Those who know me best know that I love my sleep dearly, but I’ll admit that I’m enjoying mornings a bit more these days. Call it maturation in progress. Anyway, I was making my way to the office and was just about to walk into the lobby through the back of the building when I came across a burnt out wreck of a station wagon on the street outside. Not everyday you get to see the remains of a car-b-q on a Tribeca street; at least not in this day and age.

A few hours of work go by and then it’s off to lunch at Pongsri with some of the guys from work; all part of the interview process for a new hire in the web department at work. Still strange to be part of the process, but I guess it’s getting easier being on the other side of the table; asking questions and not answering them. On the way back we noticed some metal security railings along Braodway outside the office. I had seen parking permits the day before about filming for Conviction so I really didn’t pay them too much mind, thinking they were somehow related to that.

But then around 2 pm, there were unfamiliar sounds coming from outside that grabbed all of our attention: people chanting. A group of us made our way outside to the rooftop garden to see what was going on. And for the second time that day I was rewarded for bringing my camera with me.

Then it dawned on me.  In my earlier-than-usual morning, I had time to catch up on the news, and they made mention of planned protests about the immigration policies in this country.   I knew they were happening in Atlanta and Washington, so it’s wasn’t too far of a stretch to see one here too, what with New York being the center of the universe and all.

That’s right, I said it. The universe goes around New York and Copernicus was a flake and a fraud, but that’s neither here nor there.   ^_^

Anyway, the rest of the workday took on a very strange atmosphere.   Every ten minutes or so chants would go up from the protesters and seemingly punctuate whatever minor task we were taking care of.   My personal favorite example was the loud round of chanting that kicked off just as I was concluding a phone interview.   I even raised my arms in mock adulation to my many fans outside.   Things were still going on some four hours later when I was walking out the door to make my way to the Big Quiz Thing, but the epicenter was further south.

Another dozen and a half pics of the protest — from the roof and from ground level — after the jump.

There I was, all ready to go to sleep when I noticed a strange glow and caught the distinct smell of burning wood out my window. I looked out my window and sure enough, there was a brushfire raging across the street. Of course, what made this a unique event is that the bursh that was ablaze happened to be under the parking garage of the Troy Towers apartment building, the 22-story structure that looks down on my building from its perch on the Palisades above.

The fire truck that was dispatched initally started setting up next to my apartment, but the problem with that was the location of the fire — it was still a good four or five stores below the flames. What’s more, there was still another four or five stories worth of parking sructure and swimming pool to navigate around. Not the easist of places to get into.

But then again, these men are professionals and once the fire department had a chance to repositioned themselves on top of the parking structure, the fire really didn’t stand much of a chance. Something out of the ordinary, but in the end nothing more than a tempest in a teapot. How said tempest started, I have no idea, but I’m sure something will be said of the events in an upcoming edition of the Weehawken Reporter — they’re good at covering this kind of stuff around here.

Saturday night I had the pleasure of hanging out with a rather nice group at an apartment party celebrating Dan’s 25th birthday and Dan & Jonah’s offical apartment warming party for their upper west side digs. Quite memorable, at least from what I can remember. Got to hang out with former coworker Lauren for a while, which was a nice plus. Even saw a staged fight on the building’s front door security channel — complete with head waving and thrown jackets. All in all a good night out.

I mean, can’t you tell in the pictures?

Due to a kitchen renovation in progress, my cousin’s annual St. Patrick’s Day party was canceled, leaving me with a hole in my schedule and an opportunity to sieze. As luck would have it, Donny had the notion of celebrating the holiday properly — in our favorite Irish Pub, the Dublin House.

We certainly weren’t the only ones with that bright idea. There was a 30 to 45 minute wait in line to even get in the front door, though they were nice enough (not to mention smart enough) to set up a bar outside where you could get a few Guinness’ while you waited. Maybe you saw it on News12, cause they had a newscaster freezing her ass off cover it.

Turned out to be a pretty good night. My sister came along with some of her friends from work, Nick and Vivian came out as well, and I got to hang out with Pete for the first time in a while.

Guess who’s who in the following pictures.

Anyway, I wanted to do some posting tonight, but seeing as how I don’t have any real good topics coming to mind, I thought I’d just share a random photo from my collection — the first of many.

This one taken on the Hudson River during one of last summer’s many Rocks-Off cruises I attended. Long exposure on a full moon night while the boat bobbed up and down as it motored through the water — this one was a pain to get right. But that’s the wonderful thing about digital photography: you can take 20 or 30 shots of something to get that one perfect shot and all it costs you is that little investment of time for something that I find to be quite timeless.