Back In The Day

The other day I found this great treasure on YouTube. My brothers and I used to watch this show ALL the time on Nickelodeon back in the day. I wish they still had shows like this on Nickelodeon. Anyways there are actually three of these videos and I don't feel like posting all three. so if you want just click on the link below and then you should be able to find the other two and be able to watch the entire episode.

Enjoy

Leave a comment if you also were a fan of You Can't Do That On Television.

Santa Clause Is Coming To Town

Merry Christmas, to all you Christmas celebrating people out there. We are making preparations for Santa to come into town in the wee hours of the night tonight. Hannah is getting excited. We are leaving tomorrow to head out to the outer limits of Texas to the land far far away they call Buna.

We've watched a few movies the last little while that are worth recommending:

The Waitress: This movie is great for moms, and any parents. It was a very clever movie with a great feel good story.

Well now I can't remember all of the other movies I was going to talk about. The only other movies I can remember, I have either already told you about or they weren't any good, for instance:

Bratz: Could of been a made for TV movie, on the Disney Channel or something.

Hot Rod: A great movie that I already recommended to everyone. Heather hadn't seen it so we rented it.

The movie I rented and can't wait to watch is Helvetica, only Heather isn't so excited about watching it, but I plan on watching it tonight for sure. I also am planning on watching Bourne Ultimatum, and Harry Potter at some point during the week.

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday.

In The Wee Hours

Around 4:00 am a small voice began to filter its way through my mind awakening me from my slumber. There was a lot of chatter going on, you could almost call it a conversation. Only one little girl was invovled. I was unable to make out most of what was being discussed, either that or my memory is failing me. What I was able to understand was,

"OH NO!"

"Hold on I'll get Daddy"

then a much louder voice yelled out, "DAAADDDY!"

This call repeated four or five times until I rolled myself out of bed and walked quietly towards the small voice. I opened the doorway to see the cutest little blue eyed girl standing up in her bed and as I walked through the door she looked up at me and said, "Oh, there''s Daddy."

"It's dark."

"The dark is gonna get me."

I then tried to tell her the "dark" was not going to get her, but she insisted that it was going to get her and her little friends (her toys.) So I asked her if she wanted to come lay down with daddy so I could protect her. She shook her head yes, and began to scan her bed for who else she wanted to save. So she grabbed Frosty the snow man (a present from Grandma Karren.) her blanket and her pillow in a princess pillowcase.

she remained quiet but very much awake for another hour or so in bed laying on-top of me or directly beside me. At one point there was a rumbling noise in the bed, then I felt two small hands grab me by my face and jerk my head to the left until I opened my eyes to see two big blue eyes staring back at me and the small voice said, "I farted."

Then she rolled over and tugged at her mom, and said, "Hey Mom, I farted."

At some point she fell back asleep and none of us woke up again until 8:00 am, where I had to jump out of bed and rush to get ready for work, so I could battle my way through a day of coming up with mind numbingly creative logos for a Dentist.

Career Designs by Andrea

Friday I finished up the last few tweaks and took another website live. both of you reading are prolly thinking, "who cares," Which is a very valid thought, who does care. Well besides me, I guess the client cares. Other than that the only real reason I am posting about it, besides the fact I think I did a mighty fine job is because this is the first site I finished designing that isn't for a dentist.

Enjoy.

Hannah

A week or so ago Heather got Colleen Bontrager, one of her friends from church to take a few pictures of Hannah at the park. We had no clue how this was going to go. A month or so ago we tried taking pictures in the same outfit at JCPennies, but Hannah freaked out, and it didn't work out at all. I have to admit that I was doubting these pictures were going to work. I have taken my fair share of pictures of Hannah. I am ALWAYS trying to get her to pose for pictures, and it never works out. So I just have to take them in the flow, and if I try to be quick and catch the cute faces, or the cute actions.

However if you take a few minutes out of your day and click on the photo above and check out the pictures that Colleen Bontrager took of her, you will see what a wonderful job she did. Not only her, but you will see how well Hannah did. Hannah actually posed in multiple photos. Although I seem to enjoy the ones where she wasn't posing, because I see pictures of frozen memories, so it always seems that the real Hannah only comes out in her natural habitat, which has nothing to do with a pose. I believe the photo above was my favorite of the bunch, at the same time they were ALL good, and I really appreciate her taking them for us.

The Weekend

I know it's the middle of the week and all, but I actually wrote this Sunday night. So get over it...

So this weekend we decided to watch some movies. It all started off on Friday when we went and rented Super Bad. I was cracking up throughout the whole movie. I suppose it was a little too much for Heather, and she didn't really enjoy it. I'm already ready to watch the movie for a second time. Several things about the movie reminded me of when I was in high school, maybe it's because I was a dork as well, and was scared to talk to girls, I don't know. There's a lot of cussing in the movie, and a bit of crude humor, but all in all it made for some good laughs.

Saturday we decided to travel down to San Antonio, to visit my family. My sister Kelly was in town with her two kids, Trevor & Lauren (we forgot our camera, like always.) So we decided to make the trip so Hannah could play with her cousins. I'm trying my hardest to offer Hannah the life I wished I would of had. A life where you actually know your extended family. Where you actually know your aunts and uncles, and your cousins and stuff. It gets tough when everyone lives in different cities, and some in different states, even different countries. But I am trying...

So anyways while we were there, me and my two brothers, Matt & Ethan decided to watch, Hot Rod, they had both already scene it, but for me it was my first time. I think Hot Rod might of been funnier than Super Bad. I was laughing so much my stomach started to hurt, and I got a small head ache. Also it was PG-13, which made it all the laughs without the naughty language.

We got home around 8:30 Saturday night and Hannah was exhausted, so we put her to bed and me and Heather cuddled up in bed and started to watch Pirates of the Caribbean, At Worlds End. We bought the movie on the motive that we already owned the other two. So we were hoping that the writers and directors made the smart choice and just let the movie end on a good note, and give us our moneys worth. Not to mention the ending to this third installment was really the ending of the second one. I was already disappointed that they decided to all of a sudden do a "to be continued" crap in the second one, when the first one was a complete movie. I thought that was already a creative flaw from the get go. Anyways I stayed patient and kept my hopes alive that they would in the end deliver the ending I had hoped for. Instead I was GREATLY disappointed, and left wanting my 4 hours of life back. Sure it had moments where I was entertained, but the ending SUCKED!

Actually to be honest with everyone reading, and by everyone I mean both of you, if the ending to the third would of been the ending to the second, I wouldn't of been half as disappointed. Since it wasn't I have to say that both the second and third one both suck. So now I own three movies, when really I only like the first. In fact I think I need to watch the first one again tonight, so that I can feel better about wasting my life watching the other two.

Holiday Desktop Love

Currently at work I have decorated my desktop with the latest in Christmas attire. At the same time allowing me to be educated on the different variations of Santa Clause's in different parts of the world. So I think you should to. Click on the picture above to read some behind the scenes information about the making of the illustrations, and how to grab yourself one.

If nothing else click on the post and allow yourself to be entertained for a brief while on this Monday morning.

Learned.

"We get better design when we understand our medium. Yet even at this late cultural hour, many people don’t understand web design. Among them can be found some of our most distinguished business and cultural leaders, including a few who possess a profound grasp of design—except as it relates to the web."

JEFFREY ZELDMAN.

This past year I have been able to learn quite a bit about designing web pages, this is not to say in any way that I have perfected this skill, just vastly improved. I began learning how to design websites briefly in high school in 1998. I took a Computer Arts course, which basically covered any and everything the teacher herself could get her hands on regarding art on a computer. The class first started with simple exercises in a program called PC Paint. From there she moved us to learning a basic understanding of Photoshop, and the class seemed to learn along with the teacher. So we would usually start a project, and never finish them, because the teacher would learn something new and want to share it with the class. At the end of the year we lightly touched web design, and it was all done in Word. Which I look back now and find it hilarious, because I was super excited about it, and really would talk to people as if I seriously knew how to design a website. The site I did build was like filled with scrolling and blinking text, and I thought it was so sweet...

Moving forward the real lesson on the web came in my Intro to Web class in college. This is where I learned the basics of HTML, and tables. I even learned and built a site totally in frames. However I was more sold on the idea of designing sites using tables. The reason I enjoyed tables (I think) was because of how similar it was to the grid. The grid is something that was taught to us in all of my other design classes, as far as designing anything in the print world. Seeing as how my degree was in Print Graphic Design, and not interactive. I quickly became obsessed with typography and learning to design in the Grid system.

Print is wonderful because as a designer you have complete control over every aspect of the design. You have complete control over the text, from the font, to the kerning, letter spacing, leading, and basically the entire presentation is controlled. All throughout school I continued to expand my knowledge of the web on my own. It wasn't until this year that I finally broke away from the table comfort zone of web design. Whereas now I have been fully converted to the Web Standards movement.

It wasn't until recently meaning this year that I realized one of my biggest road blocks in progressing as a web designer was that I treated the web the same way I treated Print. I designed my websites as if I was designing something that would be printed. I would design a site but only focus on the design of the actual content area, ignoring the rest of the screen. I would then build the sites so that it would look exactly as my "ai" or "psd" file. Sometimes that meant the entire site was almost completely made out of images. Which was great for me personally, but the end user I was not so friendly to. I never took in mind designing for the end user, nor did I take into consideration that not everyone had the same computer as me, nor the same browser that I had. I also didn't take into mind the different disabilities of people, and because of this none of my sites were accessible. I also never took into consideration the entire screen regardless of what resolution or screen size the end user would be viewing the site. The background was always a last minute thought and something just thrown in. Now I take the entire screen into consideration and make the website one fluid design.

This past year I have learned that designing for the web is NOTHING like designing for print, they are two totally different aspects, however they do share some basic design principles in making them successful. However when designing a website you have to think past total control of context, and think more about the end user. You have to take into consideration that a website needs to be optimized, and search engine friendly, as well as easy to navigate, which means each page will load quickly and efficiently. Every action of the site should be simple, and virtually effortless. When working with the web you have to remember that the end user has so much control and also NEEDS a lot of control so that the site will function best for them. So for that reason their are quite a few limitations to web design. At first these limitations used to discourage me, but it was really my print design mentality of needing and wanting that total control over my work.

I find designing for the web challenging in a beautiful way. I enjoy the limitations and find that the limitations are greatly out weighed by the benefits they bring the end user. Designing a site to Web Standards makes a site much more highly accessible by various users. Why would any business owner say no to more visitors? The site will also be faster, and function in a timely manner regardless of weather someone is still in the stone ages of dial up or not. It will improve search engine rankings as well, and who wouldn't want that?

It's funny because most of the benefits to the sites I have designed lately go totally undetected to the client and whoever is viewing the site. Only the people that take a look at the site under the trunk, and are able to comprehend what is happening under the trunk truly are able to appreciate it. For example, for the most part edits on the site are done in a much more timely and efficient manor. This is one of the HUGE benefits that goes unnoticed.

The web is a completely different world, for this purpose I believe that is why most great web designers primary focus is designing web pages. Some web design superstars started out as print designers and have since almost completely left the world of print and now only work with the intraweb. I think that is almost a testament to how vastly different the two mediums are. I think if you really want to grow and develop yourself as a web designer you need to focus solely on web design. I think having a background in print is definitely beneficial because a lot of the principles of design in general are a huge benefit and give you a very strong foundation, but first you have to accept the fact that it is a different world and you have to accept the fact that you can't have total control. After you are able to accept these facts you are well on your way to being teachable and ready to grow and develop as a web designer. I am just starting this process myself, however I am still unsure of weather I want to totally leave behind print, and focus on web. I really love the world of print, and I'm not sure I am ready to give up the control just yet...

For better information on the subjects spoken of today visit these sites:
If you click on only one link to better understand what I was trying to say here in my post please make it this one:
Understanding Web Design

These other links are also better written, and well worth any ones time.
Ten Reasons to use web standards
What Every Website Owner Should Know About Standards
Why Use Web Standards

Friday Funk

All day today I've been in some sort of a funk making it difficult to do my job as I am unable to come up with creative solutions. Seeing as how I get paid to come up with such solutions, I could of been considered virtually worthless.

It's been an interesting week, and I suppose it has taken it's mental toll on me in the end. Hopefully this weekend will be a good one, and I can come back Monday refreshed, recharged, and ready...

Holidays!

Little Einsteins from Shane Guymon on Vimeo.

Thanksgiving went well for us. We decided to make a short hop and a skip to San Antonio (Live Oak) to spend thanksgiving with my mom. Mark (and it was his birthday!) and his family were also planning on making the voyage, and Matt is living in San Antonio again right now, so that brings all the boys home with their mom. Our car performed beautifully the entire trip (as of today it is still in the shop baffling the minds of the mechanics.) there and back. Ethan fried two turkeys and my mom baked another. Along with that my mom slaved in the kitchen making mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, rolls, and sweet potatoes. So anyways Mark showed up a little late with his family, but other than that, it was nice to see everyone and spend a little time with everyone. Hannah also enjoyed playing with her cousins, and still misses them.

We got back that night, and the next morning decided to put up the Christmas Tree, and all other decorations as well as watch some Christmas classics like, "Rudolph The Red Nosed Rain Deer," and other cheesy holiday movies on "The Family Channel." We also decided to make a trip to the mall on "Black Friday" where we ended up spending about 40+ dollars on Hannah at the Disney store. Her favorite cartoon of all time is Little Einstein's and when she saw all four of the characters she picked each up and called them by name in a very excited tone of amazement. Before we knew it she was hugging all four at once and looking up at us with her big blue eyes. We tried to get her to only pick one or two of her favorites, because when she first walked in, she became equally excited with a play, tea set, with a serving cart included, which was on sale for $20.00. The Little Einstein's were being sold for 2 for $10. Hannah insisted on having to have everything, and being that I was all Christmasfied with the decorations and movies and such, well we traveled home with them all.

Movies I watched:

Live Free or Die Hard: Awesome action, and a decent story!
Meet The Robinson's: I found it enjoyable, Hannah wasn't too entertained.
Shreck 3: We bought it before watching it, which I don't regret, but I also didn't find it as entertaining as the first two.

Movie Update

Well I've been watching quite a few movies, and haven't been updating. So now my memory is failing me a bit, so for some of these you won't get more than a sentence out of me. Anyways here we go...

Next: I enjoyed this movie, it was pretty good. Not the greatest movie ever, but I didn't feel like it was a total waste of time.

Surf's Up: This movie isn't really for little kids, but it was pretty good. I'm not a surfer by any means, but I've always enjoyed surfing movies.

I Think I Love My Wife: Not as funny as I was expecting, but it also wasn't a terrible movie. I don't think I would ever watch it again though.

Kickin It Old School: This is one of those movies that is funny for like the first 30 minutes, but then it's pretty much all the same type of jokes, and so it get's old really fast, and you already know how it's going to end, so yeah, that about sums up this movie for me...

Spider Man 3: I was NOT too impressed. I will repeat the same things alot of others have said. It had very poor character developement. They should of stuck with one, maybe two villans, and not THREE. Then when Spider Man is being taken over by the venomouse black substance, it get's EXTREMELY cheesy, and doesn't seem to fit in well with the over all tone of the movie. It just seems out of place, and unbelievable. Sure their are some cool aspects of the movie, and overall I am not regreting watching the movie, at the same time I won't be purchasing the movie, and I doubt I will ever have the desire to watch it again.

Oceans 13: This movie was GREAT, however I have enjoyed all of the Ocean's movies, including the originals. I do want to purchase this movie, and I would love to watch this movie multiple times. It was a very enjoyable movie. It's clever, funny, witty, and the cinemotagraphy was well done, and the acting was superb, I also enjoyed the plot and the story.

In The Box

The BEST fast food burger out right now is the 100% sirloin burger from Jack In The Box. Pictured above is my personal favorite which is number 2 on their menu only on Cibata bread with grilled onions and swiss cheese. It comes in a monster of a box, and it is a monster of a burger (in comparison to other fast food burgers.) For the regular meal and no upsizing it's going to run you a good 6 bucks. As for me I don't really need very many french fries to contend with battling my hunger, just the burger alone seems to do the trick, and it did just that last night when hunger declared battle around 7:30pm.

Score:
Jack In The Box= 1
Hunger= 0

Bounce & Sing with Hannah

Sing & Bounce With Hannah from Shane Guymon on Vimeo.

Heather caught me and Hannah singing and dancing together after I gave Hannah a bath...
Yes I know I look retarded, but it's all worth it for my little Hanney...

Family Photo

For the first time in 5 years we went and took a family photo. Hannah did good enough to get some decent pictures out of her. She wasn't too thrilled with any of it, with that being said she also didn't want to leave because they had a lego table and she enjoys building castles and trains with legos. It was fun though, and I really enjoyed the results. I should scan these bad boys into the computer, but we already framed them and hung them up, so I tried my best to take pictures where I limited the glare so you could actually see the photos.

Premier Family Dental

My most recently designed website went live this past week. I'm really proud of what I have been able to accomplish in the ways of web design. I've been designing websites off and on for the past 5 years now. I wish i was able to somehow get all the websites I've done online as an archive so I could truly show you my progression from the beginning up until now. Actually I think I just may be able to do it. It will take some digging, and I think it may be worth it.

It even features such beautiful things such as this coupon which was drawn by me and tweaked by my creative director and friend Joel.

Anyways go ahead and click on the images to see the site Live & direct and In Full Effect!!!!

In the near future we should be able to add some actual pictures of the Dentist, as well as her office. Personally I feel this is the best site I have designed that is currently live and in it's natural habbitat.

Enjoy.

Broken Poptarts

Poptarts from Shane Guymon on Vimeo

Every morning for the past little while Hannah wakes up and comes and lays down in bed next to us while we watch The Disney Chanel cartoons. Eventually she will turn to me and say that she wants a poptart and KOOL-aid. The funny part comes, when she starts to eat it at some point the pop tart will begin to crack and break off at some places. When this occurs it is a terrible thing in the eyes of Hannah, so she begins to frantically tell me that the poptart is breaking and begins forcing me to take it from her hand and manually break the piece off and hand it back to her.

This morning even more evidence of her wierdness came when watching Mickey Mouse Playhouse, where Mickey was on the hunt for "RED" gummy fish and found them in a pond, only he had to rent a boat from the bad guy. The bad guy was napping in front of some tied up raftts and a cat began to play with the rope and then they show that the rope begins to come lose. At that moment Hannah begins to physically CRY and say, "oh NO! oh NO! the boats, the boats." When the boats fell on the sleeping bad guy she began to cry and tell me to fix it.

The same thing happens whenever she drops food on her while eating, or when her hand gets dirty. Also if she finds a lose string on her clothes, or blankey.

So it appears Hannah is a bit O.C.D.

The Invisible

I watched this movie this past weekend and enjoyed it. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting from the previews, but the soundtrack alone won me over. Just check the listing of artists:

"Music for a Nurse" by Oceansize
"Fashionably Uninvited" by Mellowdrone
"Wolf Like Me" by TV on the Radio
"Under Pressure" by Kill Hannah
"Bliss" by Syntax
"Open Your Eyes" by Snow Patrol
"Body Urge" by The Great Fiction
"Taking Back Control" by Sparta
"02-20 Boy" by Suicide Sports Club
"Stars & Sons" by Broken Social Scene
"Weak and Powerless" by A Perfect Circle
"Caterwaul" by ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
"I Will Follow You into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie
"Perfect Memory" by Remy Zero
"You're All I Have" by Snow Patrol

They open the movie up with a dream sequence that plays out as though it were reallity, which was kind of reminicient of Garden State. The acting is not great but good. I thought the two main characters (I didn't recognize any of the actors.) did a good job, some of the others weren't so great. The story itself is good enough to keep your attention. I felt it was a good enough movie to grab some snacks and stretch out on the couch when none of your favorite shows are on, and, "make it a Blockbuster night."

In My Ears

Lately I have really been into Pinback. I recently was introduced to them by my friend Angie. They have a real nice laid back sound, perfect to pop on some head phones and bust out some super fly funky fresh work.

New Photos

Click on the picture to see a whole slew of pictures I added yesterday to my Flickr account. I'll be adding the ones we actually took last night tonight.

Happy Halloween

It seems we have a fun night ahead of us, atleast if all goes as planned. We will have our camera with is at all times, and hopefully be able to capture the moment and share it with each and everyone of you.

Saturday we had a slight preview or a practice run at our church where they had a trunk or Treat along with a carnival with games and food (a chile cook-off.) They had a halloween costume contest where Hannah got robbed. Hannah really enjoyed going to each car and saying "Trick or Treat!" and left by giving a healthy "Tank you!" She lasted a decent amount of time holding her own pumpkin which all the candy was being thrown into. It wasn't until we were almost done and on the home stretch when she it finally got too heavy for her and she asked, "Help you!" which really means, "Help me!"

Funny thing is, lately at night she comes and sits on my lap with a pen or something and if she can find it her small handheld piano thingy, and says, "I wanna sing tinkle tinkle little STAR!" so we sing it as she either pretends to play something by tapping the pen or other object on my arm, or she will pound on the toy piano pretending to play. When that song is done she will look at me and say, "I wanna sing abcd lmnopeeeee!" So I sing the alphabet song as she repeats the same musical actions. It's lots of fun but it never really has an end....

NBA Preview 2008

A few pre-season games have already worked their way into the national progamming schedules of ESPN & TNT. This Thursday on TNT will be the first double header Pre-season game, and the season officially starts on October 30th.

So with no further adieu let's talk some basketball shall we. As soon as October hits, my blood starts to run a little swifter through my veins as the excitement begins to build up from the holidays... yes, but also because of the basketball season starting up. I slowly work ESPN and Sportscenter back into my rotation of what to watch on a daily routine basis, and ESPN the website becomes a daily stop throughout my daily surf threw the intraweb.

Teams I'm Excited to Watch:
Phoenix:
Has been my team since obtaining Steve Nash, not so much because I am a Steve Nash fan (although I am) but more because they are an exciting team to watch. They put up 100+ points a game and mostly shoot threes. Which is basically the way I enjoy playing when I'm found on the hardwood. So I will be looking for them to make it deep into the play-offs. They made a few small moves in the off season the biggest being that they signed Grant Hill, I'm not sure how smart of a move that was, but I'm anxious to see how it plays out.

Celtics:
This is the team that made the biggest moves in the off season and obtained two of my favorite players, thus making my heart twitter with that much more glee. Seeing as how I was raised in a Larry Bird home, Celtics was the team I rooted for from birth. Up until I learned of the greatness that is Michael Jordan where I quickly was converted into a loyal Jordan disciple which effected my life on and off the court. Moving forward I am happy that I now have a renewed interest in the team and will once again return to my roots and become a very avid Celtics fan. I can not wait to see what the trio of Kevin Garnette, Ray Allen, & Paul Pierce will do to an already weak Atlantic Division.

Spurs:
Well let me start out by saying NO I AM NOT A SPURS FAN. Most people who do not know me very well will automatically assume that because I was born and raised in San Antonio that I would obviously be a die hard Spurs fan, however due to the ridiculous nature of "Spurs Fan," I have been left drained and unable to be associated with such a RETARDED group of people. That being said, I'm not a moron, so for me to just simply HATE the Spurs would be equally ridiculous. They are obviously either The Best, or one of the best teams of the last decade. Tim Duncan is the best big man in the league right now, and in the top 3 if not 2 players in the NBA altogether. Also I am a huge fan of Ginoboli despite his terrible ability to act, and over dramatize fouls on the court. So the Spurs are definitely a team to watch by any fan of the sport. Besides they are the returning champs, and seeing as how they have yet to repeat, it will be interesting what the season has in store for them, especially since they really didn't make any changes.

Houston:
I used to be a huge fan of Tracy McGrady, because of this I have always recieved a great amount of ridicule and late night phone calls or text messages from family and friends reminding me each and everytime he didn't come through and choked. So due to the fact that for the past 3 or 4 years he has consistently NOT produced, but instead he is consistently disappointing. I have taken a huge leap off his bandwagon, and am no longer promoting Tracy McGrady as nothing more than a decent ball player, who HAD a lot of potential, but that is NOT living up to it. With that being said Houston did make a few moves this summer, one huge one is bringing in a new coach with a new style of play. That alone sparks up the slightest hope that perhaps T-Mac will return to the greatness that he once was on the road to becoming. One move that I definitely think was RETARDED was Houston bringing Steve Francis back to their roster, kind of a BONE head move if you ask me, and might even be a worse fit than Steve being in New York. That move alone could very well bury any and all chances of Houston surviving the West, unless some how Steve learned how to lead a team and pass the freakin ball. However the last memo I recieved they weren't teaching anything like that up in New York, nor were any camps being held in Orlando, and last I checked even the Fun Police have retired.

Washington:
Each and every year for the past 5 years I am becoming more and more of a fan of Gilbert Arenas, and he has quickly climbed up the latter of my favorite players list. I could care less what the rest of his team plays like, well I shouldn't say that because I would love for him to have a strong supporting cast, but at the same time that won't stop me from watching him play. Just like the I never stopped watching Allen Iverson play with the 76ers.

Denver:
With Carmelo Anthony improving each and every year, and the fact that this will be the first FULL season Melo and Iverson (another favorite.) share the court, also they should be a lot more healthy as a team, so they should be pretty solid.

Sacramento:
Is going to suck BAD this year, they seem to be totally rebuilding their team, their coach has found a new home on the Houston Rockets sidelines, and I'm not totally positive what moves were made as far as players being added and subtracted goes, however they do still have the highly streaky and inconsistent play of Mike Bibby who in my opinion has the sweetest looking jump shot in the NBA. That reason alone keeps me tuning into their games. I get goose bumps seeing how beautiful his shot is. Sadly it seems that Sacramento sealed their own fate when they decided to trade Chris Webber and try to build their team around a guy who only had success because Chris Webber was on the court. (Peja Stojakovic. **100 bonus points to anyone who can tell me what team he plays for without looking it up online.**) It seems the team has gone on a swift downward spiral ever since.

I don't have any real solid predictions for you, in regards to who is going to win the championship, or who's going to win "ROY" not even a name for who's going to lead the league in points, however I will leave you with this

MVP:
Steve Nash, Kevin Garnette, LeBron James (It will be one of them.)

A Few Photos

Here is a photo of Hannah wearing her new pumpkin shirt.

Here is a sequence of photos I like to call The Many Faces of Hannah.




A Weekend With The Family:
This weekend we met my mom, Matt, & Ethan in Taylor, Texas at this Bar-B-Que joint that was featured on the Food Network, and I believe some magazine as well. It's called Louie Miller Bar-B-Que. I totally meant to grab my camera and be able to have some photos to share of the fun times, but I forgot to grab it as we walked out the door. We did have a good time though, and the food wasn't too bad either. OF course it wasn't any better than Tom's Ribs, which is my favorite Bar-B-Que joint in San Antonio.

Getting Older

"I check my face, I look a little bit older..."

So I turned 27 Sunday, and so whenever your birthday lands on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday that means the entire weekend becomes your birthday (atleast in my mind.) So Saturday my mom was supposed to make a trip with my brother Ethan to visit me and take us all out to dinner. I received a call around 8:30 as I was following Hannah through an empty yet brand spanking new Super Target, on the phone was a familiar but raspy voice informing me of the bad news. It was my mom informing me that she has been and still is sick, and wasn't going to be able to make the trip. It was sad indeed, but I decided to make the best of it and still enjoy the weekend. Hannah decided she wanted to look for bugs in target and was growing annoyed of me being on the phone instead of helping her, so we said our good byes, and I slid my cell phone back into my pocket and went on the hunt with Hannah.

Saturday was a pretty chill and laid back day, we walked around the mall a bit, hit up Baskin Robins for a two scoop Sunday, where Hannah decided my ice cream was her, lucky for me she shared. then to end the night I hit up the movie theater, sadly the last time I was at a movie theater was on my birthday last year. Anyone that knows me know that I am into about 3 things, Basketball, Movies, and music. If you ask me what I want to do I'm always going to chose going to the movies. It's hard for me to explain but there is just something about the experience of watching a movie in the theater. It may be due to the fact that I have a lot of memories of going to the movies with my father growing up. Then also that is something we also did as an entire family, and me and my brothers share the same passion for making a trip to the theater. It's been difficult to go recently one with Hannah, and two with how much the cost of admission these days. However there is a $1.50 theater not too far away, and I would love to make that something to do once a month or even once every two months.

Anyways so I was able to see a movie Saturday night and I had a lot of trouble making a decision on what to watch. My choices were:

The Kingdom
Michael Clayton
We Own The Night
3:10 To Yuma
The Darjeeling Limited

The only two of those movies showing in the theater closest to me was The Kingdom & Michael Clayton. So I decided I didn't want to travel to far, so I limited my decision between those two movies. I read a couple reviews and finally decided on what was reviewed as being more action packed.

The Kingdom:
This was a GREAT movie, it far exceeded my expectations of the movie. Right from the opening credits and the graphics that were used to display a timeline of events to give a history of the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia in regards to oil. It was beautifully done, and pulled me in right from the get go. The movie itself only got better as it went on uncovering more and more secrets, and ending with a lot of big explosions, and shootouts. The movie was also very cleverly filmed where there were many parts where it appeared as though someone was just walking around following these FBI agents and documenting it. There were a few shaky camera scenes to ad a bit of realistic touch. All the acting was up to par, and the music went well with the movie, perhaps not as cleverly as Wes Anderson does in his movies, nor was there as much pain staking detail as Wes Anderson puts into his movies, but that's not the type of movie that this was. It was a great way to end my night.

Sunday, which was my actual birthday was very low key and laid back. It was spent the same as all of my Sundays. We just lounged around the house, went to church, came home, ate dinner, and watched football with a few sprinkles of television shows. I also was able to squeeze in, Reign Over Me, which was a very nice and enjoyable movie as well.

Pushing Daisies

My all time favorite show thus far out of all the new shows that have kicked off this fall season is Pushing Daisies. I love everything about the show. The story is good, the acting is good, the set and costume designs are superb, and my all time favorite aspect of the show is the way it is narrated in it's, "Lemenony Snickets, A Series of Unfortunate Events" manner.

Be sure to tune in every Wed. 8/7c on ABC.

Elevators

Fresh off the presses, I turn 27 on Sunday October 14th, so mark your calendars and hit up your local Nike store, or good ol' fresh cash is always accepted as well. As a default I am always satisfied with a good ol' fashioned card, if it can make me laugh that will gain you extra bonus points. E-cards are also accepted but frowned upon unless they evoke a solid (not a courtesy) laugh.

In other news, I was recently, and by recently I mean Friday around 3:30, informed that I am getting a significant and also sufficient raise that went into effect October 1st. Not too shabby indeed my good friends out there...

I was looking back on a few old entries from blogs I have kept in the past, and came across this beauty that caused some beautiful memories to flood my brain.

"We both arrived on time...
which is good, I'm usually never on time.
I sat down as she approached the window to sign herself in
I began to read, It's a book I have been trying to finish for a few months now
I'm pretty weird when it comes to reading,
I enjoy reading but I go through spurts where I actually set aside time in my day to read...
It's really a matter of turning off the TV long enough to pick up a book.
Everyone who showed up after us seemed to get called in before us.

Finally I found myself all alone in a room sitting in a chair in the corner,
My wife was urinating in a cup...
I was left to my thoughts as I held my book in my lap.
Soon the silence was broken, and it wasn't long before the lights went out..
The only thing lighting the room was the screen, and the little amount of light that the crack between the floor and the bottom of the door would let pass through.
Before I knew it my little baby was on the screen in a very abstract way.
I struggled to be able to make sense of what was being shown on the screen.
The doctor tried her hardest to make sense of all the madness...
After staring into the screen long enough it finally made sense, and I saw her...
It's a girl!
It's so amazing to think about me being a father...(and scary)"

Reading through some of those old entries it's nice to remember the road I've traveled to reach where I am. That bumpy road has made me into who I am today. The crappy night time job I had taking catalog orders for Lane Bryant, Lerner, Chadwicks, and Brylane Home, as I was going to school full time. From their I got an internship that led to a more enjoyable job with low and painful pay. Then Hannah blessed our life and I kept pushing myself and pushing myself learning and growing through each and every bump in the road. It's fun to read my thoughts, and the different stories I shared. I really need to take the time and print all of it out or save it on a CD or my computer, maybe even all of the above.

"We moving on up in the world like elevators."

Fall

The new Fall television line-ups have officially been kicking off. So last night was my favorite night of television. Starting at 8:00 was an hour long episode of The Office on NBC. Where we found out that Jim and Pam have hooked up but are trying to keep it a secreat. Not to mention Michael was up to his shananogans by starting the episode off with hitting one of the employees in the parking lot.

After that I flip it to the "FX" chanel to catch another hilariouse comedy that not alot of people know about. It's called, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. The great thing about it, is they ahve been showing back to back new episodes. So that brings two hours of laughter into my life.

Other shows I'm watching:
How I met your mother (Monday)
Scrubs (New season hasn't started yet.)
Big Bang Theory (atleast the first episode.)
Psych

I also want to watch:
Life
Chuck
Las Vegas

hmmm, I'm drawing a blank and can't think of the others.... (I'll be updating this list as I remember.)

What are you watching this fall?

Landmark

I recently finished up a project for a dentist in Littleton, Massachusetts. I first did a Direct Mail campaign for him, which was followed up with a website. This in itself isn't that unusual at my job. In fact I have designed 10 direct mailers and 4 websites since I have been working with Practice Cafe. With two more Direct Mailers in the process of being printed, and another 3 Direct Mailers still in the design stages. I also have 4 other websites I am currently designing.

There are a few things that make this project different and special:

1.) This is the first website I hand coded in valid XHTML, & CSS. It is the first time I designed a tableless site solo.

2.) It was the first time I did the design of the site on the fly as I was coding it.

What do I mean by that? Well usually I would design a site in Photoshop or Illustrator. Then after I came up with how the site will look, I take my design and use it as a blueprint as I create the actual website.

So this time I just started designing and creating the site on the fly all in the code. I tried to rely as much on the power of CSS, and as little as possible on slices and images.

My only help in creating the website was this wonderful book called, CSS Mastery.

3.) I touched on it a bit in number one, however I believe this deserves it's own number. This is the first site I created that is valid. I'm sure there are quite a few readers out there that have NO clue what I am talking about. Well if you click on the link "valid" you will see that it takes you to a website that has a green bar that reads, "This Page Is Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!" So this basically this is the first time I created a site on my own that I got a GREEN bar. Which means my code is correct, and should be understood by most if not all browsers.

Anyways I hope that Stephen Gianino is as happy with the results as I am. Also anyone living in and around the Littleton, MA area feel free to visit Stephen Gianino, check the website for a list of services, and any other info about his practice.

From A Cookie

Last Saturday I went and picked up some lunch at Panda Express and inside my fortune cookie was this fabulouse fortune dropping some knowledge:

"A financial investment will yield returns beyond your hopes."

Then Heather cracked open her cookie and Karatee chopped in the head with some more wisdom:

"You will soon recieve help from an unexpected source."

So whoever you are that is going to help me, SHOW YOURSELF! Also if anyone knows what this financial investment I am supposed to be making is, HOOK A BROTHA UP! I can seriously use some "returns beyond my hopes."

Chef-Boy-R-"G"

Sunday after church I decided to come home and get busy in the kitchen with some diced up tomatoes, chopped up bell peppers and a few knife fulls of butter. If you know me, then you know I don't cook, however I was feelin it, so I decided to let the family know that I can get down if I need to. Also who doesn't like a man to cook for them every once and again?

We followed it up with some steamed squash, with some shredded chedar cheese sprinkled over the top, and some mashed potatoes. I tried to do the entire thing solo, but Heather couldn't keep her BUTT out of the kitchen, so she did all the side items.

I'm not sure how Heather felt about the final product, but I was mighty pleased with the outcome. The only regret is I really wanted some onions sauted up in the mix. there's always next time though right?????

Who Cares

1.) What I was doing ten years ago: September 1997
I was a Jr in High School, I was just about to have my own car, my brother Matt was on his way to Russia for two years, and I was thinking I was the coolest kid in the world, too bad no one else agreed with me. (accept my mom, and she still thinks that way.)

2.) Five years ago: September 2002
Just putting my life back together after returning home from Brazil, I was engaged to Heather, and getting myself into my first Semester of College. Stressful times back then, too many BIG decisions to make in a small amount of time.

3.) One year ago: September 2006
I was in a job I really enjoyed for the first time in my life, but not getting paid enough to pay the bills, so it was always stressful to figure out how we were gonna make it from month to month. I was fresh out of College with an Associates Degree. A blessing in disguise is that, I was laid off a month later and luckily found the job I am currently at.

4.) Yesterday: September 15, 2007 (Saturday)
I woke up and hung out with Hannah for a bit in bed watching a mixture of Sportscenter and cartoons. Heather went to donate plasma and left at 7:30, leaving me and Hannah at home solo to play. So me and Hannah had a party until mom got home three hours later. (sad thing is I can't remember what all me and Hannah did.) at 9:45 we went to McDonalds for breakfast. I think we also went to the store. Then Hannah took a nap around 1:00. I left to rent "The Lookout." and I picked us up some orange chicken at Panda Express for lunch. When Hannah woke up we met this lady at a park, and I followed Hannah around baking in the heat for a good 2 hours while Heather sat in the shade chatting it up with a possible babysitting opportunity. When we got back we went and hung out at a friends house who have two kids around Hannah's age, and they played for a bit. We came home ate dinner together, and gave Hannah a bath, and then I watched The lookout, which was a decent movie, I enjoyed it. My only complaint is when reading the brief description on the back of the DVD box, it said their was this clever unexpected twist, and I kept waiting for it, and it NEVER happened. Even without a "clever" twist it was a good movie.

5.) 5 snacks I enjoy:
1.) Chips: Flaming Hot Cheetos (I just finished eating some.), Funions, & Baked Lays
2.)Frosty with French Fries
3.) Ice Cream (Baskin Robins Banana Split with lots of marshmello on top, or marble slab with a cone crushed into the ice cream.)
4.) A nice cold fountain drink (some of my favorites include: Vanilla Coke, Mountain Dew, Big Red, & Root Beer.)
5.) French bread with cheese.


6.) 5 Things I would do if I suddenly had $100 million:
I'd hook my family up, try to hook up a few friends, become debt free, buy a house, two decent cars, throw a decent amount into savings, and invest a little bit. Probably donate a large sum to my church to help out needful causes, and people. I'd definitely make sure that my mom, and my In laws were totally taken care of, especially my mom though, who definitely deserves to be retired, and debt free. I would no doubt continue to work, because I LOVE what I do, and I would not buy a HUGE house, or crazy things, you would probably NEVER know I had that much money, unless I told you.

7.) 5 locations I would like to run away to:
1.) My Moms house
2.) My Brothers & Sisters houses
3.) Brazil
4.) Bucky's House
5.) Utah (just to visit, NOT to live.)

(Although beyond this list here are places I would love to visit: New York, Rome, Scotland, Ireland, Egypt, Jerusalem, Africa, China, Russia, & Chile.)

8.) 5 bad habits I have:
1.) I'm a stacker
2.) I'm slow moving in the morning
3.) I'm very forgetful

I really can't think of any others, but I'm sure they are there...

9.) 5 things I like doing:
1.) Spending time at home, playing with Hannah, chilling with Heather
2.) Playing basketball
3.) Watching movies (at the theater.)
4.) Listening to GOOD music
5.) Work (or rather doing Graphic Design.)

10.) 5 TV shows I like:
1.) Scrubs
2.) The Office
3.) It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
4.) How I Met Your Mother
5.) Sports

11.) 5 things I hate doing:
1.) Eating anything with mayo
2.) Sleeping past 9:00am
3.) Watching a crappy movie
4.) Driving with the windows rolled down
5.) manual labor

12.) 5 Biggest joys of the moment:
1.) Hannah
2.) My bed
3.) Music: Feist, Pinback, Imogen Heap
4.) Football
5.) Being home with my family

I'm NOT tagging anyone, because the last time I tagged 5 people NONE of them did it. I only did this because Heather wanted me to, or rather she tagged me.

On iTunes

Here's my playlist that I have on my itunes at work. Click on the image to the left to enlarge it and actually be able to read it.

What are you listening to these days?

Hot Fuzz

Heather rented Hot Fuzz for me a few days ago, but wasn't intrested in watching it, so Saturday night I set up shop in the living room while she stayed in the room, and I watched the movie.

I have to say I was rather impressed and found the movie very humorous, and the story was actually pretty darn good. It was far better than my expectations. Not sure what I mean by that, I suppose I thought it was going to be lacking in plot, but be a humorous shoot em up type movie with subtle splashes of dry humor.

Hot Fuzz was done by the same guys that did Shaun of the Dead, which was basically a parody movie with their own personal twist to add comic relief. I enjoyed it, so that's what made me want to check out this movie of theirs. I have to say I heard alot of sub par and negative reviews from some people about Hot Fuzz. They said that they were disapointed, but after watching the movie I am rather confused as to why. I felt Hot Fuzz was better than Shaun of the Dead. The only thing I can think of, was they were expecting Hot Fuzz to be another horror film with a splash of comedy. Also Shaun of the dead had more in your face comedic moments, and Hot Fuzz was more subtle, and it was more dry. As for my personal opinion I feel humor is best served DRY.

I have to say that the end of this movie, or the last 20-30 minutes is one of the best endings I've seen in quite some time.

Best line of the movie: "You're a doctor, deal with it!" (I edited it to keep my site family friendly.)

Fresh Kicks

Throughout my life I have always had a great love for shoes. In my ladder years of high school I began accumulating shoes, because for almost any occasion that would warrant a gift I would ask for a pair of shoes, then I got a few short-lived jobs during the summer and used a portion of that money to also purchase shoes. Currently I have roughly 20-25 pairs of shoes (I've never officially counted.) I've lost a few pairs, some I let people borrow and they were never returned, and others lived their full life. For some reason as of recent I haven’t had a pair of high tops, and that never really mattered until the recent series of unfortunate events. Four to five months before moving to Austin I badly sprained my left ankle playing basketball. Then in January I sprained the same left ankle (as if I had more than one left ankle.) playing basketball. It swelled up and became very bruised, since January I have tweaked it multiple times, and sprained it two other times, the last one being 2 weeks ago. At first I was going to simply purchase an ankle brace, but then thought if I just had a good pair of high tops that would also do the trick.

So this weekend on a pure whim, we made a trip to the NIKE Factory Outlet in Round Rock, to see what they had in their inventory. We were really on our way to HEB, when Heather decided to keep driving. I found these bad boys (pictured above.) I found a box for a size 11, opened up it up and the air was filled with that fresh smell of new shoes. I pulled out all the paper tightly stuffed inside the toe of the shoes, slipped them on my feet, laced them up and took a small walk up and down the isle. They felt good, comfortable, lightweight, and seemed to give adequate support. So I pulled them off my feet, jammed the padding back into the toe of the shoe, and placed them back on the shelf.

Heather was confused, she was asking, "I thought you liked them? Don't you want to get them?"

I replied, "I need to take the walk."

The walk:

Is a customary voyage that can take anywhere between 5 minutes to a month at sometimes. It's where I leave the item walk around elsewhere to see how much the item sticks with me. If it stays with me and I still have a desire for the item, then I return to purchase the item.

I wanted to use my "walk" time to go to the Adidas outlet, and check out what they had to offer. Although they had a fresh pair of black and white high top flavor. The price didn't sit as well with my bank account. The smell of that new pair of shoes was still thick on my mind, and I could still feel the way those all white Nike’s with a hint of silver accents was hugging my feet. So we made the voyage back to the NIKE store, where Heather and Hannah waited in the car while I returned for my new pair of shoes.

I'll be able to give an official report on their performance on Wed. but until then they are sitting pretty beside my bed.

Welcome Home!

P.S-Here's some pictures of our Labor Day weekend Bar-B-Que that the church had at the park. (Free food... I'm there!)

DisturbiaMimzyFractureEx

I keep forgetting to update my movie watching, and now so much time has passed I can't recall all the movies I've watched, so here are a few highlights I do remember.

Disturbia: This movie was decent, it ended a bit too quickly and didn't really develope the story or develope any sort of suspense like I was expecting. It was worth watching at least once though.

The Last Mimzy: A kids movie, that wasn't terrible, but also wasn't spectacular. It wasn't the "Feel Good" movie I was expecting it to be, but it was decent. Despite Keli (Heather's good friend) complaining throughout the entire movie.

Fracture: I spoke to my brother Mark, and my "BFF" Bucky and they both said they had the movie figured out pretty early. Me, I never figured it out, and so I felt the movie was pretty darn good, and very entertaining. I spent the entire movie trying my hardest to figure it out. I figured out ONE aspect, but not the MAJOR aspect. Anyways it is one of the better movies I've seen, NOT "300" good, but it was good.

The Ex: I have been keeping an eye out for this movie to hit theaters for awhile now, because I'ma HUGE fan of Scrubs, and a bigger fan of Zack Braff, so when we were strolling through Blockbuster and I saw it on the shelf I was rather surprised because I never even knew it hit theaters. Regardless I quickly snatched it up and it wasn't the GREATEST comedy, but it was definetly funny, and enjoyable. So it's definetly worth anyones time.

The Capitol

I've lived in Texas my entire humble 26 years of life, most of which was spent in San Antonio, which is an hour away from Austin. Now I've been living in Austin for 8 months, and this was my first ever trip to the State Capitol.

Keli, Heather's good friend, was in town visiting us, and most of it has been spent in our apartment, so finally this weekend we actually decided to get out and do something. It was a lot of fun, we were able to find a parking spot right across the street, and paid 50 cents to park for 33 minutes. I took a bunch of pictures while we were there.

This morning I was sitting on the edge of the bed putting my shoes and socks on and Hannah was sitting next to me. So I leaned over to give her a kiss, and got a hand in my face pushing me away telling me, "NOOOOOO!"

One of her hands then was cuffed firmly over her mouth putting a permanant block on any chances pulling another attack. So I leaned over and said, "Please give me a kiss."

She held her ground and a muffled, "No!" was heard.

Heather called me into the kitchen so I got up and went to find Heather getting together something for me to take for lunch, answered her questions and went back in to sit with Hannah at the edge of the bed. When I returned she looked over at me and said, "I want a kiss."

So I smiled and leaned over and gave her a kiss, and then she held out her arms and said, "I want a hug daddy."

So I leaned over and gave her a hug, and then she said the cutest thing, "There you go daddy."

So I smiled and said, "Thanks Hannah."