2011 recap
December 30th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Wow, this year is over, and I have been poorly neglecting this thing! 2011 has been incredibly good to me, to say the least: a new bride, a new job, a new album from The Shants, a couple visits to the UK and France… phew!
Packing for Costa Rica at the moment! We’re spending two weeks in the Land of Three-Toed Sloths, with half a week in the jungles near Tenorio Volcano, and the remainder on the Nicoya Peninsula… ¡ándale!
To wrap things up, here’s a few images from the happiest day of my life, our August wedding in Napa:
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Greetings from the Big Smoke
May 16th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
… or, London Town. I’ve been here for the past week, seeing the sites and doing lots of interesting work (more on that in a bit).
I’ve spent much of my time in the financial district, but I’m staying on the South Bank, which means I cross London Bridge every morning on the way to work. Amazing. This past weekend I took in as much as possible: the cobblestone streets to eat fish & chips, near Borough Market, an entire room of immersive Rothko paintings at the Tate Modern, stood face to face with Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait and Van Gogh’s Still Life: Vase with 12 Sunflowers at the National Gallery, stood over Charles Darwin and King Edward Longshanks at Westminster Abbey, hunkered down in innumerable pubs along the way with my coworkers, and of course paid a visit to Abbey Road:
Heading back to the states tomorrow, to wrap up my finals for this semester and put a few finishing touches on wedding stuff (we finally found an amazing caterer that can handle dishes from both Southern France and Southern Louisiana).
The other bit of news is that I’ve switched gears a bit from the agency world, and moved over to a London-based shop called Monitise. We’re working on some really brilliant mobile banking stuff for very large banks. If you’ve seen any rumblings in the news about the new NFC-enabled phones coming soon, you’ll understand how busy I am 
What else… Oh, in June I’m presenting my thesis research findings & concepts to the midpoint review board. Fingers crossed!
Goin’ to the chapel
April 4th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Wow, has it really been six months since I updated this thang? It’s not surprising, as I have been ultra-busy since the end of last year…
The biggest news first, I am getting married this August to my lovely lady Sabrina! We’re hustling to put together a backyard wedding in Napa, with French & Louisianian influences. Its already shaping up to be quite a party – we just lined up Magnolia Photobooth Company to set up camp for our guests.
As for work, I’ve been having a blast doing interaction design for an array of iPhone and iPad apps for the medical field, including some apps that help patients keep track of their injection schedules and doctors appointments. This experience has been inspirational, with lots of information challenges to solve!
What else? The band has been in the studio since February, working on our full length record. We successfully raised funds for the recording process using Kickstarter, which was an invigorating experience. Recording on a vintage analog 24 track has been challenging, but warm tones we’ve captured are worth the sweat. We’ve started to mix 12 beautiful songs (augmented with Howie’s mandolin & violin plus guest vocals by two of my favorite local singers, Brianna Lea Pruett & Quinn DeVeaux), and we’re chomping at the bit to release them. Here’s a photo from Rec Center Studio, of their Baldwin FunMachine organ in front of a mural-sized 1950s aerial photo of Oakland, taken with Instagram:
School has been equally as fun this semester, with a javascript/PHP class on Thursday nights and an online digital photography for web design class. I’ve made some headway in putting together a simple HTML prototype for my thesis app, but I just need to optimize it for mobile web. I’d like to get that done before I present my midpoint presentation to the committee this summer, but we’ll see how it goes.
On deck for the next few months: more wedding planning, mastering The Shants record, a trip to Palm Springs, a little more Lomography, and maybe a prototype music/events site that uses lots of mobile jQuery.
New York & ch-ch-ch-changes
November 22nd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Started November off right, with a brief trip to New York for a wedding. I’ve always wanted to see the Big Apple, but have never followed through… either due to money, scheduling, or just plain Southern Pride (we are historically averse to anything related to Yankees, or crossing the Mason-Dixon Line for any reason).
Spent most of our time in Brooklyn, but also spent the night at the Gild in Manhattan, just around the corner from Wall Street. Saw Lady Liberty from the shore. Walked over the Brooklyn Bridge to have some damn fine NY-style pizza at John‘s on Bleecker Street. Caught the Wafels & Dinges Truck for a Nutella fix.
The other Big Thing that happened… I’m leaving my job! After almost 3 years with a digital agency known at various times as Molecular & Isobar, I’m moving on to other opportunities. I am looking forward to a challenging new project, and to working on really cool stuff! My last day is Nov. 30.
