Somewhat Daily Words

When the Trayvon Martin case became a national story, I was quick to point out the necessity of waiting and seeing as the facts came to light.  I lost a Facebook friend over this particular stance.  But why is it that the “wait and see” opinion is so hard for people to grasp? Too often, in the court of public opinion, do we find ourselves trying criminal cases that are thrust into the national spotlight.  The 24 Hour News Cycle feeds this obsession, turning all of us into wannabe Perry Mason’s overnight.  We use whatever information is given to us to formulate our arguments, either on the side of the prosecution or the defense.  We invest ourselves in our chosen side, and forget that there are real people on the other side of the television screen, who are dealing with actual grief, loss, sadness and anger. I didn’t understand this myself, until I lived through it.   On Saint Patrick’s Day 2011, my 23 year-old nephew Clarence was stabbed in a f...

Dear Mr. Wang, In June of 2008, my wife purchased a 32" Vizio Plasma television for me for Father's Day. Needless to say, I was very happy, having wanted to make the switch to HD and finally being able to do so. Our current television was over ten years old, so I was looking forward to a long relationship with this television and Vizio. Around December of 2009, I noticed some odd behavior from the television. It would flash on, and then off, and then on again. As though it were like a car having trouble turning over to start in cold weather. The problem was annoying in the beginning, and worsened over the last few weeks. Until tonight, when it refused to turn on at all. Once the holidays were over, I called technical support, to find out just what I could do to either fix the television myself, or what you could do to stand behind your product. The customer service agent, who was very polite, informed me that since my warranty had been expired, and that my wife hadn...

For Project 2996 A little over 8 years ago, if you lived in the Warwick, Rhode Island area and had to go to the Emergency Room at Kent County Hospital, chances are, you may have been greeted by a smiling Carol Bouchard. I imagine Carol would, in a moment of your discomfort or great physical need, do her best to get you care as quickly as possible. I imagine, also, Carol coming home at night, sharing a meal with her husband Fred. Laugh about something funny that may have happened that day, or quietly dream with him about plans for the coming months, or years. One of those plans she had was to go to Vegas with her friend, a decision that was difficult for her, given her fear of flying. I imagine when she got on board American Airlines Flight 11 at Logan International Airport, that, despite her fears she was enjoying life, and looking forward to whatever the future might hold. Unfortunately, after only an hour or so of being in the air, Carol, along with 75 other innocent people, were ...

It's taken me over a year to finally get off of my behind and update my website. But now - it's here. Well, most of it. I have a few kinks to iron out, but I have it uploaded and working, and you can check it out here . I'll take any advice I can get, so fire away. But there's a problem when I get a major project finished. There's a dozen more I have to get off the ground. Here are a few of them. A to do list, if you will. 1) Update my portfolio. There's one thing that designers and other artists have to do in order to maintain fresh - keep creating. I've been doing a bunch of things, mostly non-creative, but I really need to update my work portfolio - some new, versatile projects that showcase my skills. While putting my portfolio together, I noticed that I have a lot of solid poster design, so I'm going to have to focus on some layout and other design projects. Maybe I'll do a CD Cover design, and a magazine layout. They don't have...

I celebrated 11 years of marriage to my wife, Michelle just a few weeks ago. We're trying to keep the budget tight, so this year we kept our anniversary celebration low key. I got a green screen (green fabric & a couple of floodlights - total spent - $30) and Michelle, she got the fruits of my first labor with that green screen - which you can see below. I tried uploading this to YouTube, but thanks to some pesky copyright laws, they pulled the audio, so I deleted it. This copy is from my Facebook page. So, to clear things up - no, I didn't write or perform the song. I don't own it. It's owned by the Proclaimers. I don't make any money off of this website, or the content. Once I do, I'll pull this video. Anyway, what I really wanted to do with this video is start building my online portfolio, complete with assorted multimedia products, showcasing my skills with Adobe After Effects, and Final Cut. Since I have a limited amount of work produced (since...

So, for the past two years or so, my Web Site has looked like this: Nothing special - and it didn't really offer much, other than a link to this blog, and a pdf copy of my portfolio (which is old and needs updating itself...) Anyway, I've avoided the daunting task of updating my site because, well, I'm an idiot when it comes to web design. I've been intimidated by Word Press, which seems to be all the rage these days, and a novice with Flash, with very - VERY limited knowledge of Dreamweaver. But I've been looking for a job and trying to drum up more freelance business, so I've come to the realization that the time has come for me to finally get my presence on the web at least up to code. (get it? Code? I kill me!), so I dove in yesterday, and I'm about 45% done. I won't be uploading it until it's completely finished, but here's a sneak peek: Hopefully, if time (and coffee) allows, it will be up and running by Monday.

I'm starting to learn a few things about myself. 1) I like being busy. 2) I work better under pressure from myself than pressure from others. Lately, I've been picking up more work, most volunteer, but there has been some paying work here and there, and that's been nice. But with work being pretty sparse over the past few months, I've found myself getting pretty lethargic. But, when it does get busier, I seem to get a real boost out of the pressure of self imposed deadlines. It's a nice feeling, to have a job, and to finish it in a timely fashion - and to be pleased by the result. For instance, I've been helping out some friends of our family who are dealing with a devastating illness, as they have been developing and putting together a tribute slideshow for the man fighting said illness. Mostly I've been working on the audio side of things, but I was given the opportunity to flex my Photoshop skills this past weekend, and, I'm so proud of the results...

Call me naive, or blame it on the freshness of his death today, but I'm pretty sure at this point, that John Hughes had a bigger impact on popular culture and popular film than any director of the last thirty years - and yes, that includes Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas. Don't get me wrong, both Uncle George and Stephen have done wonderful things for film, but just hear me out. First of all, look at the resume of all three - George and Stephen have, together, produced a hand full of what I believe to be classic movies - The Star Wars Trilogy, Indiana Jones, Jaws, Schindlers List, and Saving Private Ryan - to name a few. And while I don't diminish their impact on popular culture (Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Jaws, mostly) or their impact on the art of film (Schindlers, Private Ryan), I still don't see their overall mark on the popular culture of movies and life to be as massive of that of John Hughes. Look at his resume: Mr. Mom - changed the way America looked at ...

I was a Cub Scout for a couple of months as a kid. I'm not exactly sure how old I was, but I remember that I didn't continue on the path of Scouting due to the lack of men involved in our troop. My mom wanted me to join Scouts because I didn't have a strong male influence around, and she figured I'd found it in the Scout program. Instead, she found that the leaders of our local troop were all women, and pulled me out after a while. I don't remember if I liked it, I was always a shy, awkward kid, and never quite gelled with most macho stuff, like camping and the outdoors. I was far more comfortable with my books and my drawings. Come to think of it, that might have been the other major reason my mom put me in Scouts -- she could have been afraid I would never be very masculine. But that's beside the point. Being a home school family now, Michelle and I wanted to do as much as we could for Josiah to get interaction with kids his age, and to offer alternative ...

On Father's Day we went for a walk around town, and ended up at the park. We had the playground pretty much to ourselves, so I decided just to turn the camera on and observe my kids playing together. They get along SO well. My prayer is, that as they get older, this continues. No sibling rivalries - PLEASE. (On a technical note, if you'd like to watch this in HD, just double click it to watch it in YouTube.)

Been busy with a lot of stuff - including but not limited to a job search, volunteer design /motion graphics, barter design, and paid design work - and did I mention I'm a stay at home home schooling dad? Yeah, I'm swamped. I've made the conscious decision to not feel overwhelmed - in fact, I downright refuse to feel that way. I'd rather be busy, juggling a bunch of stuff at once than not have anything to do at all. So anyway, I'm busy, but I've been using Twitter almost constantly since I downloaded the Twhirl app, which is basically a combination of live e-mail, instant messenger and Twitter rolled into one. I love it for this very reason. It's almost replaced the idea of blogging for me, but some things I just can't fit into a 140 character limit. So here's a few snippets of things that I would have "tweeted" but didn't have the ability to edit it down. After about 13 to 14 years, I've immersed myself back into the Star Wars...

When I was in elementary school, one of my favorite sections of the playground was the Merry Go Round. I don't think they have them on a lot of the more sanitized plastic playgrounds of this modern era of safety, but back then, it was considered alright to let kids spin themselves dizzy during recess. So we'd do everything we could to get this galvanized disc to spin as fast as we could get it, and then jump off, resulting in us stumbling in every direction possible. Funny how some of us probably went on to do this less than twenty years later, but getting the same effect using alcohol. But I digress. The last two months I've been spinning on a merry go round, but I didn't realize it until I jumped off. Because now I'm stumbling all over, trying to figure out what direction I need to go in, and feeling a bit sick. Sorry if I'm being cryptic, but that's what you get when you read the blog of someone who has trust issues and finds it hard being content. I ...

So I had a job interview yesterday. What was the job? Well, that doesn't matter right now, but let's just say that if I get it it will be God ordained, and if I don't, it will be God ordained as well. I'm fine with either solution, really. But anyway, during the interview I was asked if I'd ever taken a personality exam, to determine, well, my personality. I wasn't sure if I had or not, but figured that it would be cool to know that sort of thing. So today I get a call, and I will be receiving a personality test in my e-mail, courtesy of my pending employer. Awesome. But I'm an impatient guy, so I did a quick Google Search for Winslow Personality Test, and took the first one that came up in the search . It took only about ten minutes for me to discover that I am personality type ESFJ (Extroverted Sensing Feeling Judging), or as another site puts it a Guardian Provider . I'm pretty sure there are probably some flaws in the system, but that see...

Since most of you have lives, and couldn't follow my thoughts in real time as I listened to No Line on the Horizon through my Twitter Feed , I took the time to compile them here. If you have yet to buy the album, and aren't a purist like me (i.e. don't care about CD design, liner notes, tangible evidence of album ownership...) you can pick it up for a mere $3.99 over at Amazon - a steal if you ask me. Not sure how long that sale will last, but go for it if you're so inclined. Also included will be all of the replies (and my responses) that I got from my friend Ben Avery , who is a big (probably bigger than me) fan of the boys from Dublin. Keep in mind, at the point I was writing these thoughts down, I had only heard two cuts from the album, since Get on Your Boots was released weeks ago, and they played Breathe on Letterman Monday night. So basically, these are initial thoughts that are subject to change on repeat listening. #U2 - listening to No Line on the Hor...

We're a week into the New Year, and I have yet to make any headway on any of the goals that I've tried to set for myself. I've never been one for resolutions, since I lack the discipline required to actually keep them, but I did want to start of this year with some sort of game plan. Yet, here I am, on the eighth day of the year, and I haven't even written down a list of goals, let alone start on the trail to reaching them. I hate talking goals. I hate discussing plans. The rational side of me wants to say that it's mostly because of my laziness, another part of me says it's fear of success, but I think, when you get down to brass tacks (who came up with that saying anyway? And what the heck does it mean?), it's probably because I'm so paralyzed by a fear of failure, that I let little excuses like laziness, or being busy, become crutches. I have so much that I want to do, then why can't I just pull the trigger and get them done? I'm not ...

I get these update e-mails every week from some Reunion site I signed up for right before my 10 year high school reunion three years ago. Most of them are vague or innocuous, but the latest two or three have been sort of....creepy. Who is this strange 32 year old dude looking at my profile? I'm pretty easy to Google. Seeing stuff like this makes me feel kind of icky.

It's been a long day. I can't talk about it much here, but without explaining, it's just been a long day. And it's going to be even longer, since I laid the baby down to sleep just about fifteen minutes ago, and I still have a few more things to tighten up on a project for class. But anyway, here's a picture I just had to take - the "You Should Be in Bed Kid" Picture... Now, back to work...

I've been married for Ten Years. TEN YEARS. Now, I'm not so much surprised by this fact, when I said "I Do", I knew it was forever, but I'm shocked that it's been that long. A decade. I haven't done anything voluntarily for a span of ten years - except stay married. I'd love to say something shmaltzy or lovey dovey here, but I think Terry S. Taylor summed up my marriage pretty good. Built Her A Cloud (by Terry S. Taylor) I've got a princess who wears a second hand dress She tells me "Baby, I know you've done your best" Though I've found comfort In the love we vowed I can't help thinkin' that I've let her down Well, I'd do anything to make her proud Deserves a castle I've only built her a cloud Each day I work hard, But time, it is no friend One day you look up and find you're near the end There are some words too dark to say aloud like how you're thinkin' that there's no way out Though she...

So I'm in my third week at my new job, and today was the last day for the guy I'm replacing. He's been at this position for about four years, is pretty good at it, and if he didn't have to leave for a good reason he wouldn't. So to say that I'm a bit overwhelmed at filling the shoes of a legend, would be an understatement. I imagine it's a bit like how George "Twinkletoes" Selkirk felt in 1935, when he stepped in to replace Babe Ruth in the Yankee right field. How do you live up to the legacy of a legend? How could you possibly be as good, or better than him? I imagine these questions echoed in ol' Twinkletoes' head as he walked onto the field in Yankee Stadium for the first time. Apparently, he didn't let it get to him too much. He ended up playing for six Yankee Pennant winners, and batted better than .300 in five of his first six seasons. Not too shabby. Sure, he wasn't the Babe, but he did pretty good. Here's hoping...

So I mentioned recently that I did a bit of nostalgia/impulse buying on iTunes, but I didn't really elaborate on the purchases themselves. In the ninth grade, I loved heavy metal music. To put a finer point on it, I loved Christian Metal. I didn't have a lot of access to secular metal, since all of my friends were of the same faith as me, so instead of cutting my teeth on Megadeth or Metallica, like my peers, I banged my head and pounded my fist in the air to bands like Tourniquet, or Deliverance. And yes, there was the occasional Stryper or White Cross album too. But mostly, I dug thrash, and progressive metal, and Tourniquet and Deliverance fit that bill pretty good. I grew out of it, it was a phase, or at least I thought it was. By my senior year my tastes were more along the lines of Daniel Amos, Jacob's Trouble or the 77's - all great bands, but mellower. I'm sure my grandfather appreciated that too, since the volume of my cassettes was significantly lowe...