Shane Recommends

Here are the best things I came across on the infinite abyss I like to call the Interweb in 2009. If you pay any attention to my tweets or my "Net Worthy" section on the right side of my blog you most likely already saw all of these. Enjoy™

The Four Ways People Decide

Style VS. Design

Creating a Timeless User Experience

Goodbye, Google

The secrets of Google's design team

10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines

Can You Be a Web Designer?

Start-up Metrics that Matter by Dave McClure

Great Designs Should Be Experienced and Not Seen

Handcrafted CSS

Formula to Happiness

THE PREFACE

Over the years I have learned the formula to achieving happiness. However just as in math knowing the formula is only half the battle. It's an entirely different story when you actually have to apply the formula to actually solving the real world problem (equation). I should know, seeing as how I always struggled in math class. The majority of the time I was able to completely understand how the formula worked, however I would always miss a step along the way. I wouldn't carry the negative sign, or I would go to fast and make careless mistakes which led to me coming up with the incorrect answer.

In my pursuit for happiness I often face the same problems with receiving the correct answer, which in this case is happiness. In other words, by me "claiming" to have the formula to happiness does not in any way mean that I am ALWAYS happy.

THE FORMULA

I firmly believe that ALL people regardless of race, color, religion, or nationality have a personal set of morals and ethics in which they set for themselves as a standard "code of conduct". For many people religion, culture, family, and other outside forces influence this moral code of standards. In many cases it is almost sub consciously imbedded into their system. Meaning that for the majority of people it takes a lot of soul searching before we are able to realize what ours is. This is the first obstacle in being able to find the answer in the equation of our own happiness. Up until the point where we are able to learn this moral and ethical code of conduct it remains the "x" in our formula.

CREATING ESCAPES

A lot of our lives are spent trying to figure this out. I call this soul searching process "escapes." What I mean by this is that we all find aspects of our lives that if we escape them it will equal happiness. Let me use a personal example as to what I mean by this. In the beginning of my mission for the LDS church in Brazil I went through some very difficult and frustrating times. I was in a foreign country without any family or friends. I didn't speak or comprehend the native language and I was 19 years old. So in the beginning I remember thinking, well once I know the language this will be easy and I will be happy. Once I learned the language I only became aware of more issues, and obstacles. So then I began to search for a new escape. I continued down this path until finally it dawned on me that none of those things bring happiness. In fact the absence of obstacles, stress, and tribulation does not equal happiness. Alot of times that is our first mistake. We see all of these stresses in our life, and we begin to think, if only I was able to rid myself of these stresses I would find myself FREE of stress thus resulting in happiness. This is a very destructive path, mainly because the only way anyone can experience growth and edification is through overcoming trials and obstacles in their lives, but that in itself can and should be reserved for it's own post.

MOVING FORWARD

Once we are able to comprehend that escaping what is bringing stress into our lives like, the lack of money, lack of friends, lack of family, lack of a job, etc... will bring about happiness. We are finally able to make some progress through this formula. We are then able to understand that only ONE person is in charge of our happiness. In fact only ONE "thing" is in charge of our happiness. We are the only ones who decide weather or not we are going to be happy. Regardless of circumstance happiness can be achieved. This does not mean to say that the pursuit to happiness is as easy for everyone, however "easy" or "hard" in itself is a relative term and is highly based on personal perception.

The only true way to find happiness is by living up to your own personal moral and ethical code of conduct inwhich we have all set for ourselves. Everyone's morals and ethics differ, so there is no RIGHT answer. However when you you don't meet your own expectations then you don't love yourself. If you don't love yourself you also are unable to comprehend or allow others to love you. Love is important because love is what brings about happiness. However when I use the word love I mean love in it's purest form. The love I speak of is synonymous with the word charity. So the best definition I can find is in the bible which says:

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in ainiquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth

1 Corinthians 13

*I find it important to note, that in the Brazilian Bible they interpreted the word charity as the word love. Which is more proof as to how perhaps love and charity are really the same word, but their definitions have become lost in time by man.

IN CLOSING

Please note that at the time of writing this post I am only 29 years old, and in my meager 29 years of pursuing happiness this is what I have learned and began applying to my daily life. I always find when I am unhappy it is almost ALWAYS in direct relation to how well I am doing in meeting my own personal moral and ethical code of conduct. So by going through the necessary steps to repair my own relationship with myself through forgiveness I am able to once again be on the pathway to happiness once again. So please feel free to add your own beliefs that you have learned along your travails of life.

RELATED:

5 Simple Rules for Happiness

80 Percenter

I've always thought of myself as an 80 percenter. I like to throw myself passionately into a sport or activity until I reach about an 80 percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession and degree of specialization that doesn't appeal to me.

— Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing, Founder and owner, Patagonia, Inc.

Related Article: A while back I wrote an article that talks about this philosophy. I wish I would of read this quote back then, it fits in perfectly to what I was attempting to say.

Are You Color Blind?

(The numeral "74" should be clearly visible to viewers with normal color vision. Viewers who are color blind may read it as "21", or may not see numbers at all.)

Hi, my name is Shane and I'm colored blind. I've known this for a number of years now, and have even openly discussed it with some people. I've noticed that a lot of people don't really understand what being color blind REALLY means. There are also a lot of people who are color blind and don't even realize it.

How do you know if you are color blind?

Well it definitely doesn't mean that you see the world as if you were watching a black & white TV. Usually what it means is that you are most likely male.

"About 5–8 percent of males, but less than 1 percent of females, are color blind in some way or another, whether it be one color, a color combination, or another mutation."

The most common form of color blindness is a color blindness to red and green. This doesn't mean that you are unable to see the color red, nor does it mean that you are unable to see the color green. However it does mean you are limited to the amount of tones of red and green you are able to see. It also means when red and green are on top of one another it is difficult to view a contrast between the two. There are three different degrees of this type of color blindness. I fit in the category of Deuteranopia:

"Deuteranopia (1% of males):Lacking the medium-wavelength cones, those affected are again unable to distinguish between colors in the green-yellow-red section of the spectrum. Their neutral point is at a slightly longer wavelength, 498 nm. The deuteranope suffers the same hue discrimination problems as the protanope, but without the abnormal dimming. The names red, orange, yellow, and green really mean very little to him aside from being different names that every one else around him seems to be able to agree on. Similarly, violet, lavender, purple, and blue, seem to be too many names to use logically for hues that all look alike to him. This is one of the rarer forms of colorblindness making up about 1% of the male population, also known as Daltonism after John Dalton. (Dalton's diagnosis was confirmed as deuteranopia in 1995, some 150 years after his death, by DNA analysis of his preserved eyeball.) Deuteranopic unilateral dichromats report that with only their deuteranopic eye open, they see wavelengths below the neutral point as blue and those above it as yellow."

Take a test to see if you are colorblind.

Why All This Color Blind Talk?

Well recently I saw a tweet with a link to this website, WeAreColorBlind.com. Which reminded me of my own colorblindness. So then after googling a couple resources I was wondering how many other people do I know that are also colorblind.

I remember in the 90's (I'm not sure what year exactly) these pictures like the one above became really popular. They were selling books, and framed posters all over the mall and in several different stores. I would go to the dentist and one would be hanging on the wall. Everywhere I went I was always surrounded by them. I always felt weird because I was one of the only people I knew who couldn't see anything but spots. Everyone else was seeing pictures pop out at them when they would stare at these millions of circles. As for me I never saw a thing. It wasn't until several years later when I was out of high school that I realized that those pictures were used for color blind tests. So the reason why I could never see any of the pictures was because I am colorblind.

For more info about color blindness check Wickipedia.

11 Random Facts About Michael Guymon

Eleven years ago today my Mom, my brother Ethan, and I gathered around my Mom's bed to say a prayer before we left for school. When the prayer was over the phone rang, and my Mom answered to hear that my father had rejected the machine that was helping him breath and had suffered a heart attack but they were able to revive him and asked that she come to the hospital. My mom hung up the phone and gave us the news, and asked if we wanted to go with her or go ahead and go to school. I had made up my mind a few weeks earlier that I wanted to have only memories of my father awake and alive. So I chose to go to school and Ethan chose to go with my mom.

My last memory of my father was right after I got back from a trip to Utah to visit my brother. While I was gone, my dad began having more trouble breathing on his own and had to return to the hospital. When I arrived he was awake and in good spirits, I stood beside his bed staring at him laying in an uncomfortable bed in a crowded room with nothing but a small white curtain to provide him with some privacy. His face was covered with a plastic oxygen mask, to which I said something to the sound of, "I'm surprised they were able to get one of those masks custom made to fit over your BIG nose."

And we all stood around and laughed. Shortly after that we had to leave, and my father told me not to worry about him, and that he would be fine. He said he was feeling better, and doing better. He gave me a hug to which if I concentrate I can still feel to this day, and told me that he loved me and took hold of my hand and stared me in my eye and told me how happy he was to see me, and how happy he was that I came to visit him. The very next day he took a turn for the worse and had to be forced into a coma and placed on a machine which breathed for him.

By the time I got to my second class of the day, which was Art class, I walked through the door and placed my back pack down on my desk and pulled my chair out and was about to sit down when a lady came over to me and said I needed to go with her. We walked back through the door to the bright sunlight and when the door shut on the other side stood John Durnford (who was my bishop at the time) who started out by saying, "Shane, I'm sorry but..." and I knew exactly what had happened. Before I left for school my mother told me she would call and let me know if anything else happened....

In memory of that day here are 11 Random Facts & Memories About My Father, Michael Guymon

1.) My father tried hard to stop drinking caffeine, but he had difficulty giving up Cherry Coke, which he drank in the form of a fountain drink in a black Texaco cup on a daily basis. He began referring to Cherry Coke as "Cherry Water", because throughout his campaign to stop drinking caffeine he also tried his hardest to rally the rest of us to join him. So when he saw me drinking a coke, or worse yet a Mountain Dew, he would give me a hard time. I would then ask, "What are you drinking?" and he would say, "Oh this... This is just cherry water."

2.) My dad was obsessed about us leaving lights on in the house. He was constantly circling the house turning off lights we left on and he would say, "If I had a nickel for every light you guys left on..."

3.) Almost every night you could find my dad roaming the house in his underwear and a flash light making his way to the air conditioner to make sure it was set to 80 degrees. Anytime it wasn't we would ALL have to hear about it the following morning. If you happened to be sleeping on the couch while he was on his way he would lean over and shine the flash light directly in your face asking, "Who is that... Oh it's you Shane!"

4.) My dad was VERY cold natured one of the reasons he chose to hang his hat in south Texas. So year round he would wear a jacket, cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat.

5.) He refused to turn on the air conditioner in the car because he firmly believed that the air conditioner didn't function until the car was moving at a speed of 60 mph or higher. Boy was that fun when the entire family (8) piled into our Ford van for a trip in the middle of the Texas summer.

6.) Similar to Batman my dad wore what we all referred to as his "Utility Belt" which held just about anything and everything a normal person would NEVER need. Some of the items were a pocket knife, glasses, pens, keys, and who knows what else.

7.) Despite Michael Jordan's greatness next to his brother Jimmy, Jerry West remained the greatest player to ever throw a leather ball through a round metal rim.

8.) My first job was my dad paying me 2 cents a minute to tickle his head. It is looking like I might have to do that to finally get someone other than my Mom to tickle my back or head (thanks to Heather deceiving).

9.) Often times I had to make my dad a bowl of ice cream. The problem was my dad was very picky about his ice cream, and sometimes it would take me 3 or four times to get it right. He loved Bluebell chocolate ice cream covered in a lake of Hershey's chocolate syrup. However the ice cream had to be somewhat melted as well. So I would scoop the ice cream out, then pour chocolate syrup over it and carry it over to him to find out if I had enough chocolate syrup or not, and to see if the ice cream was melted enough.

10.) He had a recurring nightmare that he once shared with us, that he would be playing basketball and standing at the free throw line in the middle of a game with tons of fans in the crowd. He would throw the ball as hard as he could towards the basket and it would barely reach the dotted line in the middle of the paint.

11.) My dad was a very quiet guy. He mostly kept to himself. For example, when we would eat out as a family as soon as he was finished with his food he would head straight to the car to wait for us. Even at home, whenever we ate together as a family as soon as he was finished with his food, he would head straight back to his room, regardless if it was just the family, or if company was over eating with us. If we went to a wedding reception or other get together you could always find my dad sitting all alone in the corner out of site.

Good, Great, Greatest

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what goes into being good, great, or greatest at something. So I came up with a few ideas. The tricky part with this is how the words, "good", "great", & "greatest" are very relative in their definition. What I mean by that is, the definition of all of these will vary dependent on the person and their given experience with whatever they are applying the word to. You also have to apply the element of opposition, you can only know sweet by also knowing bitter, but then your degree of what you consider sweet will vary dependent on the amount of sweetness you have experienced. So yeah, this is a pretty complicated subject as you can see, but let's just take this little journey, and feel free to chime in with your comments and we will see if we can come up with something memorable in the end.

GOOD:

To be good at something I feel that you first need to learn the fundamental aspects of that something. As an example let's use basketball, although this can be applied to almost anything. So to be a good basketball player first you must learn the fundamentals of the game. Once you have a solid comprehension of the fundamentals I feel you are well on your way to being good. The next step is to actually practice, and by practicing you slowly begin to make progress. The more you practice the better you become.

GREAT:

To be considered GREAT, I feel you need to not only have a solid foundation of the fundamental aspects that govern whatever you are striving to be great at, but you also need to have an added degree of focus. This focus involves a higher degree of practice. You also must begin to find people who are already great or even greatest and begin to emulate them. I remember as a kid I began trying to play like my favorite basketball players, as well as my older brother. I would see him (or them) do different moves and then start practicing them. Gatorade didn't chose to use "I Wanna Be Like Mike" as their marketing campaign for no reason you know? Thats also why people wear "WWJD" wristbands as well. Trying to emulate Jesus is never a bad thing.

Even applying this to web design, I am always looking at the people who I feel are great or even greatest and then I try to emulate them not as people, but as designers.

GREATEST:

I think to get to the greatest category it comes down to your level of commitment, focus, and most importantly the details. The majority of guys you see in professional sports or the Olympics eat, sleep, and drink their sport. Just look at how hard Michael Phelps trains for example:

"Bowman actually started training Michael Phelps when the Phelps was still 11 years old. He pushed Phelps to swim at least 50 miles each week. According to him, kids at that age, is able to increase the size of their hearts and lungs in ways that no longer possible later on. The larger the heart and lungs, the bigger the aerobic engine. Phelps has been training almost 5 hours a day and 7 days a week without any rest day. Bowman admitted that he has trained the star to the extent that Phelps has little time or energy left at the end of the day for anything except to eat, sleep or occasionally watch the television. Phelps has to swim on his birthdays and Christmas too. He probably has missed some of the things he should have enjoyed at his age, but he has probably gained much than what he has missed. By the way, Bowman was a college swimmer before he became coach and he has a degree in child psychology. That helps, I guess.

Click here for the full article

The thing to be worried about when you are looking to be in the greatest category to me, is you really need to think about your priorities in life. In all reality the only things I want to be greatest in are being a father, & a husband. When you chose something like a vocation to be greatest in, you really are sacrificing a lot of other aspects of your life in order to become greatest. Most insanely successful individuals go through countless divorces, and have poor relationships with their children and family. It's all due to the amount of focus and commitment you have to have to reach the level of greatest.

If your vocation, sport, or hobby is that important to you, then I suppose it is all worth it. To me I would much rather be considered the GREATEST dad, or the GREATEST husband. So to do so, I believe I have to stay focused on what it is that makes a person the greatest dad, or husband.

CLOSING REMARKS

That is why I am more than happy with simply being great at designing websites, or basketball for that matter (if I can even be considered great that is). I am not saying that ALL people who are in this greatest category don't have great relationships with their families. I'm also just not confident that you can truly be greatest at more than one thing. Perhaps this only applies to me, and my capacities.

I do feel like in regards to web design I am at that stage where I am constantly trying to analyze what makes other web designers great. I have also changed the way I look at the world in general. When I go to the grocery store I am constantly looking at package designs, posters, and displays for different aesthetic aspects, and how effective they are. When I drive down the road I pay close attention to each and every billboard, as I sit in the mall while Hannah is playing I sit and stare at the Dillards logo and get irritated by the poor kerning of the letters. When I watch TV I pay very close attention to most commercials and the little details involved such as the fonts used, colors, music, camera angles, cinematography, and more. Similar things happen to me when I watch a movie, even my basketball watching experience has changed since I now over analyze the graphics on the screen. How they display the score and other statistics throughout the game. I flip through magazines not only to read the articles, but also to enjoy the layout and graphical elements of the magazine in general. I try to figure out what type of grid was used in the design of the magazine. There are countless other ways that my attempts to become a better designer has changed the entire way I see and interact with the world. Like I said, that to me is the only way to become great at it.

I am also constantly looking at web galleries, and almost stalking each and every web designer I feel are some of the best in the world. I visit their blogs on almost a daily basis. I subscribe to different design related magazines and do my best to read them from cover to cover.

I just hope I never allow myself to focus more on design, or basketball than I do my daughter, soon to arrive son, and wife. I think back to my youth, and how I did similar things in regards to basketball. My junior year I began shooting at least 100 three pointers a day, as well as 50 free throws. If I would of known what I know now, I probably would of gone the extreme route of Michael Phelps, because at that time in my life basketball and being successful was almost everything to me. At least I told myself that, I didn't have the focus and work ethic to quite back it up. I think many times people want to be great so bad, but don't want to actually put in the work necessary to obtain it. Mostly because they see someone that is already at that level, and don't pay close enough attention to see what that person actually did to get to that point. They just see their fame, money, & talent and covet it.

What are your thoughts?

FUNday!

Perhaps you have either seen me write this on my Facebook status, or you might follow me on twitter. Either way I've been getting a lot of people interested in this whole FUNday and what it is all about. You see back when I was in highschool I always remembered Fridays being this special day, you had TGIF on television when you got home from school, often times in elementary school Fridays were reserved for watching a movie, and you also got to look forward to a fun filled weekend in which Friday was the day to kick start it all off. Since graduating from school Fridays slowley become just another day. So when I moved here to Austin, I decided to make Fridays special again. It all started with me just casually greeting my friends at Practice Cafe with a "Happy FUNday" as aposed to the usual "Good Morning."

That slowly has evolved into me finding new ways to set Friday apart from the rest of the days and make them FUN. My favorite color is red, so I started wearing red sox, and a red shirt to help set the mood, with only a few exceptions I have also worn a pair of red shoes to work as well. I'm also a huge fan of fountain drinks, so I usually will try to run by the gas station and pick up a cold refreshing cup of goodness on my way to work. While at work I always try to stay focused on making it a FUNday. Many times that means listening to some FUN songs while I work, doing something different for lunch, or tuning into Layer Tennis when it is going on.

So I would love to invite each of you to also join the movement. This doesn't mean to adopt my same exact practices, but instead just find the little things you can do to help boost your mood and set the day apart. For me it's the color red and a fountain drink, most likely for you it is something else.

Happy FUNday!

The Beauty of Forgiveness

The beautiful thing about forgiveness is that it can be given freely to all without asking anything in return. Forgiveness does not demand an apology from an offender, it doesn't require justice to be served, nor does it require forgiveness to be reciprocated. When we forgive ourselves as well as others who may have offended us or wronged us we are able to make the first steps to becoming happy.

James E. Faust said:

“Forgiveness is freeing up and putting to better use the energy once consumed by holding grudges, harboring resentments, and nursing unhealed wounds. It is rediscovering the strengths we always had and relocating our limitless capacity to understand and accept other people and ourselves.”

"Most of us need time to work through pain and loss. We can find all manner of reasons for postponing forgiveness. One of these reasons is waiting for the wrongdoers to repent before we forgive them. Yet such a delay causes us to forfeit the peace and happiness that could be ours. The folly of rehashing long-past hurts does not bring happiness."

In order to forgive ourselves and others we must become humble, and selfless (un-selfish). One of the best tools I have learned in the forgiving process is to apologize even when you don't feel as though you need to apologize.

It is funny to me that through becoming selfless we are truly able to find ourselves. This being a difficult process by the very nature of man. I believe C. S. Lewis said it better than I when he said:

“The moment you have a self at all, there is a possibility of putting yourself first—wanting to be the centre—wanting to be God, in fact. That was the sin of Satan: and that was the sin he taught the human race. Some people think the fall of man had something to do with sex, but that is a mistake. . . . What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come . . . the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

I began to first comprehend this concept during my time in brazil, but it didn't truly sink in until I locked eyes for the very first time with my daughter, and it only has been magnified during the past 3 (almost 4) years of her life. Dallin H. Oaks expressed it recently in a talk he gave about "Unselfish Service" where he said;

"...the sacrifice parents make for their children. Mothers suffer pain and loss of personal priorities and comforts to bear and rear each child. Fathers adjust their lives and priorities to support a family."

I recently tweeted, "Unselfishness is the pathway to happiness." while listening to Dallin H. Oaks talk I began to connect the dots where forgiveness and unselfishness are interwoven and connected. Whereby you can not forgive yourself or another without being unselfish, likewise you can not be unselfish without forgiving yourself and others.

I believe the one single emotion we all strive for in this life is happiness. Sadly the majority of us fall into the natural trap that C.S. Lewis described as being "the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."

25 Random Things About Me!

I've been tagged multiple times and kept putting it off but I'm finally falling victom of peer preasure...

1.) I prefer drinking flat sodas, & when I go to a restaurant I order my drinks without ice, & I LOVE Fountain drinks (without ice).

2.) I LOVE my job and NEVER dread going to work. (and I'm proud to say I designed the website for the company I work for).

3.) I HATE Internet Explorer (especially IE6) & hope that everyone reading this using internet explorer will download Firefox today!

4.) I love Pizza but take all the toppings (sometimes I eat them separate) and eat just the bread and sauce.

5.) I HATE mayo and am not a huge fan of ketchup, mustard, or any special sauces. I order all of my burgers DRY. It was always funny in high school when we would have far away games and the basketball team would go get food, they would always have to make one special order for me, and I was always made fun of for it, but my burger seemed to always be hot while everyone else's was cold...

6.) Growing up all I cared about was succeeding in basketball and I sat the bench my entire senior year and only played garbage minutes on varsity.

7.) I was awarded a letterman jacket but I have NEVER worn it, not once. (They didn't give it to me until the summer after I had already graduated. It's still hanging up in my closet).

8.) I can't eat food without lights being on.

9.) I love to watch basketball and rarely miss any televised game (college, high school, or NBA), and thankfully my wonderful wife puts up with it all, and has our entire marriage.

10.) I met my wife in a chatroom. (Yes it's because I'm a shy little nerd who is too scared to talk to girls).

11.) For the past two years I have worn a pair of red socks EVERY Friday and have officially renamed "Friday" to "FUN-day" at work.

12.) I am a self proclaimed "Amateur Musicologist"

13.) I wear a pair of basketball shorts under ALL of my clothes at ALL times (because you never know when there will be an opportunity to play).

14.) I LOVE FONTS & Typography in general!

15.) A majority of my emails end with "Enjoy™" (which I un-officially trademarked).

16.) My favorite food is Potatoe (I love it, fried, baked, scalloped, boiled, mashed, diced, sliced, in a soup, salad, and pretty much anyway and any how).

17.) My name is Shane Michael Guymon at least thats what it says on my birth certificate, and Drivers License. My mom has been heard calling me Shaney. When I was younger I used to ask her to call me her little Darling. My sister refered to me as "It" and "squeeky bones." My brother Mark called me splean, until the next time I saw him and everyone he knew including himself were calling me Skillz (I couldn't help but suppose there was some sort of "sarcasm" behind it all)! Next thing I knew my brother Matt flipped that into Spillz, which caught on well enough that this kid named Chris Capps called me that on the way home from Basketball practice, but he wasn't to happy when I called him "Pissin Craps" after that. In Brazil I became a "Greengo" either that or some other mis-pronunciation of my last name. I grew up a loser striving to become a winner. In Jr. High BJ Pratt called me the "White Somalian." In High School he started sayin Shane "The Main Man" Guymon. Mexicans (hispanics) call me Chain. Then that reminds me of all the times Matt called me Stain. A few people through my life have called me a Nerd. A few other people have refered to me as a Friend. Through my life I have grown accustomed to responding to the name Shawn. I even turn my head when people call out the name Matt (since all my life people have thought we were twins). So I guess if I was to introduce myself I would say you can go ahead and start off by calling me Shane, then you can move on from there...

18.) My life has become a constant battle of trying to gain full control over myself, appetites, passions, and emotions. To which I have started referring to life as "The Beautiful Struggle."

19.) I NEVER cuss not even when I'm angry. The worst words I say are "hell" and "damn" and those are very few and far in between.

20.) Movies are my biggest weakness. I LOVE them all!

21.) The two things that have impacted my life the most are, my dad's death when I was 17 (my senior year) and the birth of my daughter Hannah.

22.) I still sit in my moms lap when i go home to see her.

23.) I've always wanted to write a book, direct a movie, and be a photographer.

24.) My dad wanted all of his kids to have dark hair and brown eyes, and I am the only one who listened.

25.) I'm afraid of heights, roaches (and many other bugs), spiders, snakes, rats, & swimming in any body of water that isn't filled with chlorine and other chemicals (rivers, lakes, ponds, or the ocean).


**BONUS**
26.) I drove around for a week with a dead rat in my car and didn't figure it out until I finally took it into the shop thinking there was something wrong with my air conditioner (the only time I could smell it was when the air conditioner was turned on). I picked the rat up visiting my wife in Buna before we got married. Meaning I drove 5 hours home with it up in my car. On the way home was when I first started smelling it.

27.) My dad used to pay me 2 cents an hour to tickle his head.

28.) Almost every night my mom would be tickling my dad's back, arm or head. When I would try to come lay-down and get in on the back tickling action, my dad would tell me to go find my own girl to tickle my back and then marry here. So I spent the rest of my life looking for that girl, and Heather tricked me into believing it was her, but as soon as we got married all the tickling has ceased. Now my only hope is to con my daughter Hannah into tickling my back for 2 cents a minute.

Six Years

Last Sunday marked the sixth year that Heather and I have been married. I know it's not a HUGE landmark, however it has gotten me looking back to where those six years have gone. So I decided to go digging through memories that have been stuffed away into boxes and other plastic containers and tucked away in both high and low places.

For those of you who don't know I returned home from my mission December 21st 2001. I had no job, no car, and really no plans. When I got home my older brother Matt used to get onto LDS chat every day and flirt with girls. So since everyone was gone to work each day I decided to check out the chat room scene. Around January 6th I met a girl with the screen name of "TempleBound." After an hour or so of chatting with me she was overly annoyed but at the same time addicted to the dopeness that is Shane. Almost daily we would talk and soon the instant messaging and chatting wasn't sufficient and she had to hear my voice. The smooth sound of my voice vibrated the muscles in her heart a sufficient amount that the phone calls began happening on almost a daily basis. Soon after pictures and letters began being exchanged. Above is one of the first pictures Heather mailed to me.

My brother and I had both had the desire to make a trip to the Houston temple together. So we made tentative plans without any expectations other than a nice little visit to the temple. However all the phone calls and instant messaging created this uncontrollable desire in Heather to need to meet me in person. She became almost obsessed with the idea. So before I knew it she was coming up with plans on how to meet me at the temple. So above is the photo taken the first time we ever met in person. I think it was that moment when we first met in person at the temple when I knew I wanted to marry Heather...

So on went our relationship of nightly phone calls until odd hours of the night and Heather at this point basically addicted to Shane developed a master plan to have her dad bring her out to San Antonio to spend a weekend with me. So I told her when the next single adult church dance was going to happen. So Heather used that as an excuse to convince her father to drive 5 in a half hours to San Antonio. So above is a picture taken on what was essentially our first date. Which consisted of walking around the River Walk as I got us lost looking for the Alamo, and stopping to eat at Fudruckers before her Dad met back up with us to go back to the flat lands of Buna.

Now we fast forward ahead a couple months to the picture above which was taken in Buna, Texas after we were enganged to be married, but prior to her moving to San Antonio. There were a couple months where we took turns driving 5 hours to spend the weekend with one another.

Soon after Heather moved to San Antonio and we spent about 6 months together before the big wedding day came. Above is a picture from our wedding day.

Seriously this is one of the first "family" pictures we took, and it was soon after we moved to Cedar Park which was November 2006.

Above is the first professional family photo we took, and that was done last year before Christmas.

And now skip forward to our Christmas 2008 photo we took this year, and I think we have finally decided on making this annual picture a family tradition. So now with baby number 2 on the way and a new year approaching us in one minute. I look forward to many more wonderful years with my beautiful wife Heather, my adorable daughter Hannah, and whatever God decides to bring us in 2009!

How Michael "Santa Clause" Jordan Saved Christmas

Christmas of 1999, I was a senior in high school, and I spent a lot of time with a family, originally from Utah. We would play basketball together, watch basketball together, and we would constantly talk trash back and forth about basketball. Me being a Jordan disciple, and he being a die hard Utah Jazz fan we were able to have some very interesting discussions. So seeing as how Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls dominated the 90's, he received the brunt of my creative trash talking abilities. So when Christmas came around, the year after Jordan beat the Jazz to win their 6th championship. He invited me to his house for a little get together, I decided to write up a nice little Christmas poem as a special token of our friendship, as his family was about to move back to Utah. I recently discovered this masterpiece in a dusty box of memories in my closet.

I looked outside on a cold winter day
and everyone was happy I could say
It was December six,
all the good boys were out collecting sticks,
for a nice fire.
But in the mountains there lived an evil sire,
who went by the name of Karl Malone.
He had a face and a heart of stone.
Destroying Christmas was his only wish,
but Michael "Santa Clause" Jordan, well all his shots went swish.

Now Jordan and his little elves have kept Christmas for five years
so there were no children to shed any tears.
But Karl Malone
wanted to hear the children moan.
So once again they did meat for that sacred prize
to put happiness or sadness in the children's eyes.

In game one Jordan hit fifty.
The kids thought that was quite nifty.
Game two he rang in sixty three
The children all screamed yippee!
Karl Malone did steal game three
The children wondered, "How could it be?"
He repeated his rage in game number four,
but in game five Jordan did soar
he even dunked it on Karl Malones head
which put all the children safely to bed.

Now if Jordan put it away in game six
Christmas would again be safely fixed.
However in game six Malone put up quite a battle
one after one his shots went in with a rattle.

With only minutes to spare there was little hope
The children began to mope,
but wait! Jordan comes from behind to get the steal,
Malone thought, "This can't be real."
Seconds there were but a few.
Jordan hesitated before he took off to fly,
as he dunks it in Karl Malones eye.

Yes Jordan did soar,
and the crowd did indeed roar
Christmas once again came
and Malone still had no game
and all the Bulls fans got presents,
but coal went to all the silly Jazz peasants.

Practice Cafe 2008

If you recall in April 2007 I wrote a post mentioning how I had helped redesign the Practice Cafe website. Soon after that site was launched we quickly began to realize that the site had many limitations and flaws. The way the site was designed, was not conducive to a lot of growth and there wasn't much flexibility. At the time I was still learning how to design webpages and I did the best I could with the knowledge I had. One of the main flaws of the old site was that it was not very accessible as a website should be. not only that but we realized their was a lot of things we as a company wanted our website to do and say that it wasn't doing, and it was too hard to get it to do those things without redesigning it all together.

So back in July 2007 we decided to start refreshing our site. The last time we tried to do it way too quickly and therefore the site had far too many mistakes. so this time we decided we were going to take it slower and really think it through. After discussing the specific goals we needed the site to achieve I came up with a rough design for the site, shown above (click on the image to view a larger version).

However after further discussion we realized that I wasn't looking at this opportunity as giving myself a blank canvas. This design was only a slight modification of the old site, and I think I was trying to hold on to too many elements of the old flawed site. Another flaw to this design was that we wanted to have the entire waitress still standing to the side on every page of the website, since she has become one of the ways many people recognize our company. So I decided to start fresh, and I came up with a second idea for the website, shown above (click on the image to view a larger version).

Still this new idea didn't seem to really accomplish everything we had in mind. So we began to start to make several tweeks. One major problem was that we wanted the waitress to be one of the first things you saw on every page without having to scroll. We also needed her to be standing on the red checkered floor. So we finally came to a solid design which met all of our goals, at least on a graphics level.

So then we had a team meeting during lunch where we came up with a strong sitemap for the site. In the meeting we discussed in detail the goals we had for our site as far as content was concerned. We came to the conclusion that we wanted our website to be more educational, and informative. We wanted the site to be extremely user friendly, and accessible. Another goal was for our site to be better optimized for search engines.

At the end of that meeting we set a goal to launch the new site in April 2008. So 47 pages later I am happy to now say that the new site has been launched and is happily in it's natural habitat on the world wide interweb here. Please feel free to follow the link and visit the site, and please tell me what you think of the site?

I have to say that this website was very much a collaborative effort, so although most of the design and coding was done by myself, it was only after a lot of brainstorming and other discussions with Joel. Also Angie took on the job of writing and preparing almost all of the copy for the website, and I have to say she did a very beautiful job. She really turned the site into a very educational and informative site. Shara also helped write and prepare the case studies, and all of the partner pages of the website and did an equally fabulous job. Then as a team we all took turns reading, re-reading, and searching the site to catch as many mistakes as we could find and fixing them all the way up until the last moment when I was given the "OK" to set the refreshed site FREE on Thursday April 17, 2008.

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.

5 Simple Rules For Happiness

1.) Free your heart from hatred.
2.) Free your mind from worries.
3.) Live simply.
4.) Give more.
5.) Expect less.

Net Worthy

You may of noticed a few subtle changes to my blog (all two of you who look at it.) On the side bar with my advancements in html, and CSS knowledge in the past few days I have learned how to make a few customizations. I've always wanted to have this feature on my blog, but never knew how to do it. Now I know, the main addition is a section labeled "Net Worthy" which are basicly all the things I find on the web that some would call "Note Worthy" since we are on the "Net" I am labeling it "Net Worthy." I am going to try and do the best I can at keeping that updated every time I find something worthy of sharing. Should be fun!

**UPDATE** (1-18-08)
I recently added a flickr badge to my sidebar which shows the 3 most recent photos I uploaded to my flickr account also providing a link to view all of my recently uploaded photos.

CEILING FAN

I stare aimlessly watching a ceiling fan spin round and round, I roll over to the side kicking my feet off the bed as I turn my body smoothly into a sitting position with my feet softly touching the carpet. My eyes quickly scan the dark room to gather my surroundings, and soon I gather myself together enough to lift myself completely from the bed, and somehow I still feel weightless as I make my way into the closet and grab some socks and shoes along with a cool shirt to wear. I sit myself back down onto the bed slowly and slide my socks and shoes onto my feet, and tie my shoes up tightly. I get into my car and take turn on the radio, the length of the drive seems shorter than usual as I reach my destination and as soon as I open my car door I can immediately hear the sound of squeaking shoes, and a bouncing ball. As I enter the gym it seems as though everyone knows my name, and they all speak highly of my abilities to play the game. Suddenly the feelings of having to live up to their remarks enter my mind and sinks deep into my chest. I step out onto the floor and each step I take is as though I am walking on the moon. So as I start to dribble and make a move it is slow, and hard, and I become lifted up into the air slowly rising and floating. Everyone else seems to be able to move about as a normal person would. I grow frustrated with this, as I am unable to get to the basket. I begin to shoot the ball, only every shot ends up being short no matter how much effort I put into heaving the ball towards the basket. Each step I take leaves me floating into the air and I try and try to force myself to stay on the ground. Soon the air is filled with counter arguments refuting all the positive remarks referring to me. Then the excuses begin raining down drenching everyone on the floor, until I my frustrations grow.

I stare aimlessly watching a ceiling fan spin round and round, mundanely spinning in circles in a dark room. Throwing shadows on the wall that grow in huge proportions as they stretch forth across the four walls. Soon I began to feel the weight of my body and the softness of the sheets against me, and the sound of my cell phone beeping beside me slowly forces its way through my ears into my brain.

A Proclamation

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse

When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
and ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

High up above or down below
when your too in love to let it go
If you never try you'll never know
Just what your worth

danuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh

as the guitar solo comes creeping in through the speakers, before no time you begin to hear the drums start to bang, next through your ear comes the vibrations of other elecrtical sounds, and then everyone comes together in one voice...

Lights will guide you home
and ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

and the music plays!

Tears stream down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears streaming down your face and I

Now you can really feel the words in your soul....

Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face and I

Then the music stops, and quietly you hear one soul voice...

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Thats how my day began as I was driving in Heather's truck on my way down 35 to work, I had just picked up some free chic-file chicken mini's for breakfast, and The Kid Kratic show went to a comercial break, so I decided to play a song from my new Cold Play X&Y CD. Little did I know that that song would pretty much be the soundtrack of my day...

Mom called me around lunch time with tears in her voice, it seems as though her day was going about as well as mine, I drew this picture of a freakin field mouse and went to save it, and BAM the program quit on me, their went an hour of work down the drain, I was able to get started with a new one and thrity minutes into it I tried to save again and BAM! the program quit and I lost it again. MAC's are far superior to any other computer, and they never have any problems, or bugs, atleast thats what the vibe is around the world by fellow MAC users... I don't by it, I have yet to see any real benefit to a MAC over a PC...

Well Heather hasn't had too good of a day, I got a few calls from her as well. It is times like these that I like to reflect on the importance of family, and the eternal aspect of a family. I hold strong desires to have a united family, I have never really liked the fact that I have grown up with out any real relationships with any of my Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, and not really even my Grandparents.
You know it has always been my view, that family includes all of that, and then when one of your brothers or sisters get's married it is my firm opinion that the spouse of your brother or sister becomes apart of your family. So then when we speak of loyalty to family we speak of the spouse as well. So then regardless of issues I myself will and do love the spouses of my brothers and sisters. Some of them I may not agree with some of their views, or perhaps just don't connect well with them, but my eyes see past peoples faults, and short comings. I see past these things and I love them all unconditionally, I don't hold grudges, and I don't hold tight to their mistakes they have made in life, and hold that against them and throw them to the wayside as a "bad person" I still remain cordial, and greet them and depart from them with open arms. In my view taht is what family is all about, remaining loyal, and true. The love that comes from a family should never waver, it should be a constant, it is in the family that you should be able to seek comfort and shelter.

Atleast that is my views on the subject, like always I already know Mark will disagree with me, because in his words me and my friend "Bucktooth" always have twisted views of reallity, and my whole phylosiphy on life is alwasy just alittle off, I mean in all reallity he is just not sure if I am just stupid, or if really I am just so prideful and hardheaded. So let me go ahead and chalk it up to both, we can all come to a solid agreement today, and this can be my "coming out" party, It is both, I am stupid and prideful. The sadder thing is, I've never really asked for anyone to agree with me, in fact anytime I am in an arguement with Mark, or Matt, or anyone else it isn't that I am argueing with them to convince them of my opinion being superior but really I am striving to clearify and untangle the opinion after they destroy it and mis-interpret it, I could care less if anyone agrees with me, I don't believe in things because of the majority. That isn't where my beliefs come from, infact I will goes as far to say that I don't believe anything that comes out of anyones mouth, or anything I read, I seek out my own personal answers, and through my own personal dealings is where I obtain my answers. I listen and take in what everyone says, and then at the end of the night, I'm always the one who makes the decision....

Thanks to all of those who participated in the last debate.

Shane Guymon

The Fountain Drink

So I stop at a corner store to buy a fountain drink, and as I am waiting for the fiz to die down so I can fill my 32 ounce plastic cup to the brim, I place my fingure in the fizz (because thats what you do to make it happen faster). As I do this I am looking into the cup and seeing the fiz disapate (thats a nice word) and my mind becomes flooded with memories of Mark, in fact it seems almost everytime I get a fountain drink I think of Mark, now even Mark is probably asking the question, "Why does a fountain drink remind you of me?" Well their are a few reasons:

1.) I have many of a memory of Mark sneaking out to the back yard to jump over the almost falling down fence, which my dad specifically, & repeatedly told us not to jump the fence. So Mark would always jump the fence and run across Toeperwein Rd. (a semi congested road behind our house) to get a fountain drink. Their were only a handful of times which Mark would let me, his lil paesky brother go across Toeperwein with him, so those times I got to go have always stuck with me. I have never been one afraid to ask for anything, so I asked if I could go everytime, so since 9 times out of 10 I was told NO, the times when he said yes especially stuck with me.

2.) When I went to visit Mark in Utah he lived in an apartment and across the street was a corner store, so every night of the week I stayed with him, me and Mark would walk across that street, and take one of the collection of cups Mark already had in his kitchen and we would get a refill, and we would make ourselves a little mix, because Mark is the king of mixing the fountain drinks, and that too always stuck with me. I've always enjoyed spending time with my big brother, and he hasn't always wanted to spend time with his younger pest of a brother, so I always enjoyed even the smallest of moments I was able to kick it with my big brother. Even if it meant we were just gonna be rebelliouse and jump that old wooden fence and get a fountain drink. Even when the only drink I got was a sip of the fizz from the rootbeer, as Mark was waiting to fill that bad boy to the brim so we could make our treck back over that fence before my pop strolled out into the family room in his underwear and a flashlight with some fuzzy sheep skin slippers, trying to adjust the thermostat to 85 cause he didn't have enough blankets in his bed to keep himself warm in 78 degrees.

Those were the days!

So now I sit with my big red in hand, as I take a sip of the memories from the past...

Hope For The Best, Yet Prepare For The Worst.

When my father died in Aug. 1998, I was just beginning my senior year of highschool, and essentially in the beginning of finding myself. Still living off of my parents testimonies and beliefs, I was beginning to want to learn things for myself. I began questioning things in my life, so when the loss of my father hit, my thought process began to unravel. I began to ponder and question many things regarding life. My brother told my mother weeks before the death of my father that she needs to start, "preparing for the worst." I quickly realized the importance of such a preparation. For about two weeks I was mentally unstable. Soon after much pondering, and personal discovery, I came to the conclusion that there are certain elements of this world which we can not control. One of the true gifts of this life on earth is the ability to "Act for ourselves."

I came up with the philosophy that we are a product of our own decisions. I know what some of you may think, I just said there are certain elements of this world that we have no control over, but what I mean by we are a product of our own choices, is that things occure in our lives and we have the "choice" of how to react to these elements in our lives. So I began living under the philosophy to "Hope for the best, yet prepare for the worst." So that way when a cotastrophy occurs in my own personal life, I have already mentally prepared myself for the worst, so I am already able to react in a much more postive way.

Recently I read a blog of my friends which spoke of such a thing, yet placed under a new set of terms, and words. He places the same philosophy to be able to accomplish certain goals. So instead of trying to control your situation, you merely react and move with the elements, and not against the elements. It still is heavy on my mind, exactly what type of mental steps must be taken in your thought process to be able to accomplish such a task. You see with my philosophy I know what type of mental steps must be taken in every decision, and situation. This may seem a little scattered, as I am basically writing my thought process to work my way through this philosophy. Now for example if I were to make a goal in my life to accomplish something I would in turn think of the worst possible outcome while trying to battle my way through the process of accomplishing this goal, and I prepare myself mentally to be able to deal with it, so if it were to happen it would no longer be a shock to me, and I would better react and deal with the situation and move on from that point. By doing so I live under the belief to live in the present, and treat that as a gift, and not to linger in the past, even if the past happens to be a matter of seconds away from your present standing. However my friend talked of situations where his "tapping in" helped him to accomplish the goal, and my beliefs don't help me accomplish that specific goal, because I could fail, my philosophy only helps me remain happy, and not in constant sorrow. Happiness being my main goal in life on a daily and eternal perspective.

“Never looking back or too far in front of me"

Written: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 on: www.xanga.com/skillzguymon

“We got arms but won't reach for the skies
Waiting for the Lord to rise
I look into my daughter's eyes
And realize that I'ma learn through her”(Common)

Hannah’s a little congested these days, so we have been trying to do the whole booger sucker thing…

I’m not sure if it is really working. She seems to be alright though. The other night I was up entertaining her till 2:00a.m. Then Heather grabbed her and rocked her and she fell asleep. That was Sunday night, but other than that she is growing and happy.

http://babysites.com/sites/guymon7237/

This is the new site Heather started for Hannah it is a little more nicer, It lets you share a lot more about Hannah and her growth than just pictures like the msn site. So go ahead and check that out. We usually try to update it with one or more pics every day.

“Never looking back or too far in front of me
The present is a gift
and I just wanna BE”(Common)

I try and do exactly this, everyday I try and not think or worry too much about what the futer holds for me. I mean I believe it is important to make goals, and also be pushing for some type of progression in the future, but I’m not speaking of this when I say I try not to worry about the future. It is more of the things I really don’t have much control over. Some things in life we don’t have control over happening to us. All we have to do is react in the correct ways. So I just try to stay in the present, and move through my life living for today, and not in yesterday, wishing I could go back, and at the same time I’m not trying to wish for things to be different as far as wishing I was living in the future. I just want to treat today as a gift.

In one of my areas on my mission there was this huge hill we had to walk up every day. I remember for the longest time I would walk up it staring at the top, and as I took each step it was like the hill just continued to grow, and appeared to never end. The heat would pound down on me, and the weight of my feet would start to grow heavier each step I took forward. Complaints would start to shower my mind. I would turn around and look back down the hill trying to see how much progression I made, and some times I would look back and wish I was back down the hill. So then one morning I started up the hill staring up to the top, and then I stopped and I thought I’m just going to look down, and just concentrate on where I am at that exact moment. When I did this, my climb to the top began to move quicker, the sun didn’t seem to be beating down so badly. That’s when it struck me, that life will be a lot easier to bare if I just be happy and content with today…