Bragging Rights

The Gardens / Birthday / Farm / G-Grandparents

I've been getting requests to post some more pictures of owen. So here you go. A collection of images from the last month or so.

Mazda 3

I had a nice enjoyable afternoon alone today (which has not happened in a long time) and I thought I would sit down and have a little fun in photoshop. A few month ago I took a picture of my mazda 3 out in the mountains.

It was a good angle of the car but that was about it. So I figured it could use a little sweetening. What do you think? I think Mazda should hire me.

Just give it a second

I love it!

I have no idea what this is or why it was created, but I love it!

Denver Flooding

You may have heard about the crazy storm and flooding we had yesterday (July 7th). In less than an hour we received about 2 inches of rain around the entire metro area. We were out running errands and almost stalled the car twice because of deep water. Here are some pictures of the epic storm.

Being 'that' guy

Its July 3rd. The time everyone starts their celebrations for the 4th. BBQs, parties, and fireworks. I've always been for all of these. But now, Im regrettably becoming 'THAT' guy. The guy who puts a damper on your whole holiday weekend by calling the cops. FYI, fireworks of ALL kinds are banned in the city of Denver. That means no artillery shells, fountains, sparklers, or even poppers.

Normally, I wouldn't care if people were setting off fireworks, wether they were illegal or not. Its all in good fun. But when they cause my baby to wake up screaming every 5-10 minutes, you better believe I'm calling the cops. Again I hate being that guy but, you gotta do, what you gotta do.

Am I wrong?

We have a yard!

After almost a year, we finally have a back yard. It was an exhausting weekend but saturday we laid sod for the entire back yard, and then on monday, we did the parkway strips between the road and side walk (which were overgrown with weeds). I forgot to take a picture of the front fo the house but here are the before and after pictures of the back yard.

For those of you who are interested, the sod was from Kremer's Turf Farm in Brighton.

what are you listening to?

Stumbled across this video today on the nerdist.com. You have to admit, you've wondered this yourself when you pass people wearing headphone. What are you listening to?

Make Your Franklin

Found an online 'contest' for customizing the 100 dollar bill. If you go to MakeYourFranklin.com, you can see a gallery of personalized bills, download a high res image, and do your own. No prizes, no winners, just for fun. Here are a few I've done.

Will it never end?

Raise your hands if you think this is the longest day ever.

The vote is unanimous, May 19 will now be known as the longest day ever!

Photoshop II

Here is another look at what I do all day. And I do mean all day. Some of these photos take a lot of time.

The sad thing is that some of these pictures may never see the light of day. This one might be used online because the majority of the house is covered by a tree, will probably never be used for print.

If anyone is interested in the step by step process on this type of project, let me know and I'll do a tutorial style post. Let me know by commenting and/or voting on the sidebar poll.

Hobbit Feet

Over the last few weeks, I have been asked to make some welcome cards for new employees. Everyone in the office then signs the cards. The subject matter for these cards have varied from mountains, college mascots, or a power sliding Subaru. Basically anything that the new hire has a connection to. The last one I did, all I was told was that he was a copy writer. It wasn't much to go with, but I came up with an idea that i think is worthy of a blog post.

I decided to go with the 'long copy' theme and tried to make as many gramatical errors as I could. Don't kid yourself, its actually harder to do than you think.

Here is what I came up with.

The card reads, "Welcome to Nationel Markting! We hope you like your welcome sign and that it help you fell at home. At home with Richmond American Homes! Hey, I like that. Do you think we can add that to somthing? I wunder if we would have to disclaim it though. I mean, we wouldnt want people to think they could actualy live hear. Although, I think some of them do. No joke, one morning I saw a robe in the bathroom. Yeah. That was wired. We don’t even have a shower in this building! Someone told me there is one in the building next door though. But I haven't been their myself. Something about publik showers frieghtins me. It porbably all stems from my childhood gym class... It was hard being the only kid with hobbit feet. I’m more of a sitter then a walker anyways, and it looked like a really long walk. The last time I walked that far I crampped up and had hitch a ride on someone’s rolly bag. It was really nice. I think it was a Samsonite. I had a Samsonite once myself but someone stole it when I was getting patted down by security. I wanted to use the machine that shoots air at you, but I’m an asthmatic so I figured I probably shouldn’t. Im not a big fan of airport security either... I still have hobbit feet. Well, anyways, welcome. We are excited to have you on the team!"

Personal Stupidity

Here is the message I sent to Chase Bank this weekend. Please enjoy at my expense.

To: Chase ATM services

Subject: Personal Stupidity

Message: A week ago I requested a new ATM card as my current one was cracking along the top. I received my new card today, activated it, and then promptly shredded it instead of the old one.

Please send me another new ATM card.

Thank you.

TradeWork Nation

Came out of blog hibernation to tell you about my new site.

I recently finished doing a website for a pizza place near our house that is paying me in pizza. Its great! I am now in the process of negotiating a trade to get sod for our back yard. Trading is great but its hard to find people or businesses that are interested. So, I created TradeWork Nation. An web community designed to help businesses and individuals find opportunities to trade work.

Although it is open to anyone, anywhere, I am currently focusing my marketing efforts on the Denver area. I only have 2 registered members so far, but thats not bad considering it was just launched a few days ago.

I got excited about it today when I noticed that one of the big local design/advertising/marketing blogs (The Denver Egotist) did a short post of it and had this to say. "The site is brand new, but if it gets cooking, will be the spot to trade for what you need."

If you haven't already, come check it out at TradeWorkNation.com and if you've got some mad skills, sign up and share it with your network.

ADCD Paper Fashion Show

March 24th is the Art Directors Club of Denver's Paper Fashion Show. Last year's show had a turn out of 800 people with live music and 46 new fashion designs made entirely out of paper. I managed to win two tickets thanks to the fine people at TheDenverEgotist, and I'm excited to go check it out.

For more information on the show, go to paperfashionshow.com or adcd.com

I apologize in advance for the seriousness of this post. I usually try to make my post humorous and entertaining, if only to myself. But I don't know how to take this one lightly. That being said...

Throughout each day, I occasionally check out CNN's website to keep up on whats happening in the world. Usually I just read the story headers, but occasionally I'll read an entire story.

Today I came across an article that seriously made me feel a little ill. Its no secret that video games are getting more graphically violent and disturbing. Its a sickening trend that happening in the video game and movie industry.

The article is about a new game called 'Dead Island' and the growing trend of violence, specifically involving children, in video games. I had started to provide quotes from the article but decided that the author does a better job. A link to the story can be found at the bottom of this post.

The article raises a lot of questions I've had about where our society is headed as video games and movies become increasingly more violent and why people create such materials in the first place. I just don't see the appeal of slasher films and games.

So many people already seem to have a distorted view of reality and I wonder when we will start to see an increase of people preforming the violent acts they see in movies and act out in video games.

Read the full article here.

Photoshop

One of the great thing about being a graphic designer, is the opportunity to photoshop beautiful models and make them even more beautiful. Smoothing out skin tones and wrinkles. Removing any flaws, and highlighting the best features. I just finished retouching one of our new models.

It was probably hardest and best retouch I've ever done. I'd might even call it a reconstruction. Sadly the model I'm talking about doesn't have long legs or big pouting lips, but it does have some nice shutters!

Here is the before shot.

And the after.

Facebook *Updated

I've never really cared much for facebook. The only reason I ever signed up for it was because I was unemployed with nothing else to do. Now I hardly ever check it, rarely post comments on anyones 'wall', and really don't care who 'wants to be my friend'. So if I don't 'friend' you, don't take it personal. I don't 'friend' anyone any more.

At first it was interesting to catch up with people I haven't seen for the last 10 years but shortly after making that re-connection, I realized something. There is a reason we haven't talked in 10 years. We didn't have much in common then, and we have even less in common now! And I really don't care if you think the BK double stack is the best thing on the menu, or that you found lint in your navel that resembled Bruce Willis. Actually, I take that back. That I would want to see.

The worst thing about social media however, is that as a graphic designer, it is almost required that I know and understand how to use these sites! Every day social media is becoming more and more a part of marketing and advertising. If I want to stay competitive in my field, I have to sign up for the facebooks and twitters. Its stupid.

And while I was catching up with the news this morning, I ran across this interesting article, and it just gives me one more reason to dislike facebook.

"An astonishing 80% of U.S. divorce lawyers report that social media evidence is now cited in divorce cases as one of the many reasons a marriage comes crashing to an end. One in five doomed married couples cite Facebook by name in their divorce proceedings, according to a recent survey of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers."

Now this is not to say that facebook is responsible for failing marriages. Like all statistics, you could probably dig around and find that 80% of them had iphones, or drove a Prius. Which if the Prius was the husbands car, I can tell you right now, Facebook wasn't the problem. But I digress. I just hate that it has become such a huge part of our lives that 80% of those couples used it so much, that it became a factor.

I saw a commercial the other day for the new windows phone. The entire purpose of that phone is social media. All they advertise is that it give constant updates from your Facebook and twitter accounts. You can even take a picture with your phone and with the push of a button, post it to your Facebook. WHY DO WE NEED THAT?!

Why do people feel the need to share EVERY aspect of their lives with their 'friends', 'friends of friends', and every creepy stalker surfing the web for a new obsession?

It was bad enough when you had to deal with coworkers that texted all day. Now I'm amazed anything ever gets done! At any given time of day I can walk around the office and find people updating their Facebook status on their phones. They have to use their phone because it was such a problem at work, that they blocked the site entirely.

There are even employers out there that will look you up on Facebook to help them make their decision to hire you or not. Its no wonder some people out there are paranoid about what people might find out about them online.

Tagging your buddy in a photo attempting a keg stand while wearing his sisters dress might seem like a good idea, but you could be the reason he doesn't get his next job.

Maybe you think I'm just an bitter old grump with no friends on facebook, but as I said before, I really don't care.

*Don't forget to click below and share this on facebook!

Herbal Tea

I'm not what you would call a tea drinker. I've had some herbal tea at different times in my life. Mostly while at ethnic restaurants. The thing I don't understand about it is how it can have such a rich full sent, and then taste like nothing!

We recently got a new array of tea packets at work. Everyone has been raving about them so I trying one right now. I grabbed the cinnamon apple chamomile herbal tea. It sounded good, smelled really good, and taste (just a second here...) hot water.

Personally I'm the kind of person who enjoys a full bodied flavor in my beverage. Either hot or cold. I'm the type of person who uses two or three packets of coco mix in my little Styrofoam cup, with one or two packets of french vanilla creamer.

I want something I am going to enjoy drinking. Sure some teas might have vitamins or minerals that can promote good health (I have no idea if this is true or not. again I don't drink tea so I am just making this up), but I want to actually enjoy the act of drinking it. Give me some flavor.

Thats the thing that really confuses me. I have a friend who is obsessed with flavor (don't worry I won't say your name jacob) yet he loves tea. Am I missing something? Am I just drinking the wrong stuff? Or like my coco do I need to shove a couple more tea bags in my cup?

At this time I feel that I should mention that I have had a mint tea that was so strong, I thought I was drinking toothpaste. I didn't like either. So I guess that means I just don't like tea. Or maybe it means nothing and I am just wasting time because I'm tired of my job.


I just took another sip. I don't get it.

Toaster

When I first saw the title of this video, "can a 21st century man build a toaster?" I thought. "Heck yes I can!" But after watching this video I realize now that no, no I can't. Nor would I bother. If I really needed a toaster that bad, I'd steal one. Or perhaps toast my toast with a blow torch. Now thats a man's toaster!

The Black Keys