I’m immediately proud of the end result and even prouder of the journey and then I’m left wondering what the “next best thing” will be, something that will challenge everything I’ve learned as an artist and yet again there’s that creeping fear that I won’t be able to conjure up the creative energy that got me there in the first place.

That’s when I hit a wall and look over that tiny cliff I’m clinging to and remind myself that I’m not alone in thinking this.

We are not miracle makers nor can we rub that proverbial genie lap and wish for the genius to emerge. It’s all part of a larger process to reach some sort of goal (launching a product, finishing a painting, washing the dishes) and knowing the only way to get there is to take it one step at a time.

This seems obvious and even more so common sense but why is that every time we are faced with what is perceived as a daunting task we dread taking that first step? Yes, we’re apt to have small failures along the way but I believe it has more to do with shedding the warped perceptions of ourselves. That’s the first step in a cleansing process that places us back at square one; the blank slate.

It’s at this moment I come to the realization that we are unhinged from the obstacles that we allow to pile themselves up in our path and this is where we take our first steps (through the eagerness to learn and adapt) towards the goal that will make us feel like we’ve accomplished something amazing and become proud of our work.

That is, until the next thing…

Here was my initial response:

I think what’s best is each role [design and developer] is cognizant of what the other role does and has an understanding of the process. I may not know how to write a jQuery plugin from scratch or understand the specifics of a PHP module (for example), but I know by looking at it from an inquisitive mindset or asking the developer specific questions, I’ll better understand why it exists, what functions it performs, etc.

Likewise, a developer should feel free to ask the designer questions, examine their work and understand the process. A hybrid can just ask himself questions.

…it looks like magic to both sides but a lot of what comes out of design/development is experimentation, flashes of brilliance and guesswork. Both roles are not brilliant from the get-go.. you just keep working at it until that message you are trying to communicate breaks free. Even then knowing you can continue to iterate is key. And by all means, know your limitations and be open about them. Some things to remind yourself with as a design/dev: Don’t be a miracle maker, ask for help, collaborate. We don’t do enough of this and silo ourselves to the point where the lines of communication become cumbersome or non-existent.

Jay replied with:

Right back atchya man — it all seems like common sense — but sadly, it is very rare to find. it creates understanding / efficiency / & ultimately = #innovation.

My final thought:

I think because the environment that we all initially work in or learn within (art/design/illustration or development/mathematics/programming) is set up to be competitive in a way. People look out for themselves — natural human instinct — but the more you collaborate the better it’ll be for you and your co-workers, friends, family. I remember being in art class and asking the professor for more projects where I could collaborate with my classmates, there was very little of that. More silo’d projects with followup critiquing.

I am listed on my son’s birth certificate, along with my mother-in-law, as a physician.

Around 2:30am on March 30th, 2011 my wife woke me up from what I presume was a deep slumber to tell me that her water had broke and that the baby was on his way. At a rapid pace we gathered everything we had packed a few days before; a backpack with various accessories, diaper bag, change of clothes and other items to hold us over at the hospital.

It took about 10–12 minutes for my in-laws to arrive, at which point my wife, mother-in-law and I clambered into the van and made way. At the end of our street my wife frantically mentioned that we weren’t going to make it to the hospital, there simply was no time and then asked me to pull over.

We had just cleared our first light and I felt like we had enough time, judging from previous births, so I punched the gas. At the time it made sense but in retrospect it didn’t matter in the long run, so, I relented and pulled the van into the nearest parking lot which happened to be a Rite Aid parking lot.

I jumped out of the car and dialed those three hurried numbers (9–1-1) and waited for a response. The dispatcher on call asked me for the cross streets and in that moment I had no idea, I was speechless and every thought in my mind had been emptied. She asked again and I figured that I could just jog over to the street sign and make note of it, which I did, but rushed back to the van.

In that short moment, as I circled the van to the passenger’s side I saw something I’ll never forget. My wife, squatting near the door, over pavement and then an umbilical cord attached to my son (Mason) who was cradled in my mother-in-law’s arms.

They both frantically asked for something warm to wrap the baby in. The person I was talking to on 911 talked me through the next few minutes while we waited for the ambulance. I was to wrap the baby in towels, which we didn’t have, so I used my wife’s change of clothes.

The dispatcher then asked that I tie off the umbilical cord with string. I told her that string is something I seldom carry on me or in any of my vehicles. So I improvised. I untied one of my shoes (the right one) and then proceeded to tie off the cord while my wife delivered her own placenta and I helped her place it into a grocery bag. As gross as that might sound now it seemed completely normal within the context of the situation.

Moments later the ambulance arrived and immediately took the baby and my wife. Mason was nearly purple and his lungs were full of fluid, which is completely normal unless you’re born in a parking lot in 30-degree weather. I followed behind as we eventually reached the hospital and Mason was then examined by hospital staff.

Truly this was a unique experience that previously I had only heard of in movies or TV and now I can say we are blessed with a completely healthy baby whose grand entrance is one for the books and a surely a story my children’s children will embellish upon.

As a friend of mine tweeted:

Did you bite the umbilical cord with your teeth? Because, in my version of the story, you did!

What have I been up to since I last mashed my fingers across the keyboard and published something of worth? Well, I was offered and accepted a position with AOL/Weblogs, Inc. as a designer for their network of sites. My first thought was; they pay people to design blogs? It’s become more than a dream job for me and I couldn’t be more thankful for the friendships I’ve formed and lessons learned.

There’s that, on the job end of things, and as a far as my personal life is concerned we’re plugging along quite nicely. My daughter Zoe just turned 4. For those of you who’ve followed this site for the 4+ years I’ve been maintaining it this is a huge milestone. My son, Quinn, is now 2 and between the two they manage to keep us busy, thanks in part to how often they annoy each other. We are expecting another child as well so there are more adventures to look forward to.

Speaking of which, this site, my favorite pet project has become more stagnant than ever. You could search the archives… oh wait, no you can’t because that’s yet to be fixed, but hey, if you could you’d find plenty of posts describing some sort of post-mortem. Moving on from here I’ve finally decided to use Expression Engine to use as the engine of this site. One reason for settling on EE is because I’ve used it sparingly in the past for projects and the road map of feature additions & interface enhancements (as showcased at SXSW ’08) looks pretty fantastic.

The other reason is I had dinner with Michael Boyink, recent hire of Ellis Labs (the team behind EE), and through his own articulation and excitement I myself became utterly convinced this was for me. He’s also the man behind Train-EE which is both an incredible and informative resource on all that is Expression Engine, oh, and he offers training course ware on it. How cool is that?

It’s been awhile and I realize that and it bothers me, but, it’s clear to me that the progression of this site is to become something more than a blog, but also it needs to be fun again for me.

Instead of just taking in the sights around me I’m also beginning to listen more, paying close attention to the sounds of nature and the partial conversations I pick up on while on my walk.

Since we live in a village (with a population of less than 5,000), small talk carries itself through the walls of homes, in meeting hot spots like the park or the local supermarket and you’re always bound to run into someone you know.

It’s a lot like Cheers, where everyone knows your name or at least your family name.

On my most recent stroll through the village I noticed a fellow standing on the street corner in front of a Mom & Pop diner. He looked about in his 50s, but with all of his hair still intact and I kid you not, his attire consisted of a tank top, shorts and dress shoes. He was yelling to a friend across the street, who nonchalantly continued on his way until he noticed his loud companion.

They both laughed, one teasing the other and I moved on. You might see this kind of thing in everyday life, to you it might even be mundane or commonplace.

For someone like me who has tendency to extrapolate the small stuff, which works to my benefit and sometimes just the opposite, these kinds of occurrences are important for a few reasons.

One, that life really is like a play and there are patterns that we all recognize and become used to. There’s no special formula to observation, you either pay attention to details or you don’t. I’ve been informed by people that small occurrences in life like two guys meeting on the street aren’t worth remembering or mentally archiving.

Yet, life is an experience. It’s more than just a few months strung into years, it’s moments and memories and everything else.

When someone lets you know that their child stood up for the very first time, you might be interested for a moment and then together your reactions don’t align. For the parent of the child, this is monumental, a milestone in the growth and development of their child.

To you, even if you might be related, that same feeling the parent had isn’t what you are feeling because it may not be as important. We’ve got to keep track of a lot of information, this may not deserve a folder in the storage of our minds.

I might be a special case because I can selectively recall things/thoughts/occurrences that happened years ago. Most of these moments in time would’ve been long forgotten by most, but I hang onto things that might have made a difference to me.

Even if that means not having the same emotional attachment as the person who delivered the message or the guy yelling at his friend across the street, it’s something I cherish.

The only downside is my short-term memory leaves something to be desired. Recalling memories from years ago is no problem (in some cases), but there are times when I remind myself of something and moments later the memory or reminder only partially remains. 

What followed was a conversation between a three-year-old pirate, her parrot Steve and me, her “Pirate Daddy”.

Zoe: Arggh! I’m a pirate. You are a pirate too.

Me: Avast, ye scurvy sea dog! Y’best walk the plank.

Zoe: Okay. Daddy, this plank is heavy. I can’t carry it.

Me: (laughing) I said walk the plank, not carry it.

Zoe: I put it down here. That was so heavy, Pirate Daddy.

Me: Shiver me timbers! Where be your parrot, Steve?

Zoe: He flewed away! In the sky. Argggh!

Me: Yar! Next time keep an eye on Steve. A pirate isn’t a pirate without his parrot.

Zoe: Hand me a map. We need to go there. (points) And where we’re there, we then go here.
 

With this data the hackers, using an automated script of some sort, added SEO links/inframes to every instance of index.html or php.

This is the last straw. I’ve been with Dreamhost since mid-2004 and recommended them on more than one occasion and even went so far as defending them when others complained about slow service or half-baked customer support, the latter being something I never experienced.

Not any more. It’s time to look for a new home.

Over the past two hours I’ve had to comb over my files, looking for anything that could have been stolen and to my knowledge some files might have been removed.

Not only that, but the password I used was one of the best passwords I’ve used in a long time and now, thanks to this, I have to piece together a franken-mash of numbers.

It’s sad because while I represent, according to DH, only .15% of the customers whose data was changed in some way, I just wish something could’ve been done to prevent this.

Yet, who am I to say that web hosting is safe from this kind of thing, which apparently it isn’t. I suppose I wanted to believe that they were impenetrable, even if that was a premature wish.

The culprits added inframes and linkage pointing to offshore sites displaying garbled information; SEO tactics indeed.

On the bright side of things, my entries are safe, every one of them accounted for since 2004. This wasn’t an issue really considering I’ve kept backups of my DB since the beginning and make it habit to do it frequently.

I’m also planning on moving to a new CMS and will be taking the entries with me to preserve for the future, when robots make swiss cheese sandwiches with George Forman machines.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions for a new host? 

Which is why it’s an excellent film and one I highly recommend for repeated viewings — if anything to see how much all of the actors (aside from Alley Sheedy and Molly Ringwald) have aged.

Here are some thoughts/notes I jotted down as I was watching The Breakfast Club recently (via Netflix’s Watch Now feature) for the umpteenth time:

• Subtleties in the acting, especially Judd Nelson (as Bender), empowering a dysfunctional character with an emotional performance.
• Principal Vernon’s feelings on the lack of respect he receives from students, which seems a bit too much like self pity.
• The group as a whole coming to the realization that while they all seem different, deep down, they are all the same.
• Segregation by popularity and on the other side of the spectrum, lack thereof, continues to exist.
• The Jock and the Geek seem so different (mind over matter, vice-versa), and yet each share similar traits: parents have high expectations, social norms, segregation.
• The attractions between opposing social “classifications”; rebel and prom queen, jock and mental case.
• Janitor Carl as the key holder; the eyes and ears of the school, disrespected and yet more levelheaded than most.

If you’ve seen the movie please feel free to share some of your observations. 

Here’s a description of the panel (straight from the horse’s mouth):

Fine arts have long held a subtle, yet influential grip on both information and design. From cartoons, illustrations, digital art, photography and more, you’ll hear firsthand from some of the best in their fields, have a chance to explore the past, present, and future of the techniques that you see around the web, and how it can improve your own work and get both sides of the brain working better together.

Turning Thoughts into Reality

To backpedal a bit, before I made the commitment to go to last year’s SXSW Interactive conference — my first visit — I made a promise to myself that come the next conference I would be on a panel. Certainly it’s fun to actively participate as an observer, but to present your thoughts to people, to engage them, to make them think and all said and done, if they can get something out of what you’re saying, well, that’s saying something.

I kept that thought in the back of my mind, that I would somehow, using some force of nature have the opportunity to be up there amongst a group of my peers and share something, even if at the time I hadn’t any idea of what that might be.

Months later during a late night IM conversation with Anton Peck he mentioned the concept of the panel to me and it didn’t take much convincing on his part, I was hooked..

The Dream Team

Next week I will be sharing meatspace with the following creative-minded people:

• Dan Rubin (our fearless moderator)
• Glenda Sims
• Anton Peck
• Dave Shea
• Patrick Haney

Come join us on Saturday, March 10th (11:30–12:30pm) and be sure to mark it on your SXSW calendar.

It’s a win-win; you’ll have a blast, learn a thing or two and I can genuinely promise your creativity will kick into overdrive. 

The voice on the other end of the line quickly went from semi-unintelligible to socks-in-the-mouth syndrome and then silence. Silence? Did I say something? Offend someone possibly? No, probably not. It wasn’t one of those kind of conversations, where two people manage to agitate one another in 15 words or less. Following the silence, the person, a woman, maybe in her mid-30s, I wasn’t sure, chimed back in. She finally spoke, “Yes? Hmm? What you want?”.

I slid the menu across my desk, quickly scanned some food choices and then responded that I wanted a combo. “What combo? Yes? What? Hmm?”, she said once again in a rushed, there-isn’t-enough-time left today attitude. Right then I had an impulsive desire to ask her some of the questions I had on my mind throughout the week.

Questions like if there really is a meaning to life (and I’m sure that answer could be quite lengthy) I’ve often wondered if there’s a condensed answer in the form of a tabbed, color-coded Cliff Notes guide? Or, would I ever be able to schedule a meeting with the Dalai Lama in my lifetime and had if were blessed with such an opportunity, what would be the first thing I’d say?

Eventually I snapped out of that mental state and told her that I’d have the orange chicken today, with an extra fortune cookie because if anything I was convinced that little slip of paper might be able to answer at least one of my questions.