Lessons of the Heart

Oh when the wild was all covered by snow,
I forgot the colours that the grass tend to grow.
Oh the trees were all leafless,
And lifeless and black,
And I wondered if the leaves could grow back

For your heart is like a flower as it grows,
And its the rain, not just the sun that helps it bloom,
And you don't know how it feels to be alive,
Until you know how it feels to die

The lyrics of Noah and the Whale are so good, I always enjoy to constantly be reminded that life is about both the good and the bad, and that we must have the bad to know the good. The bitter to appreciate the sweet and so forth.

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."

Enjoying the Sound

Lately I've been listening to Noah and the Whale both at work and in my car. Hannah is even a fan, requesting we keep the song below on constant repeat while strolling down the ave. Their music reminds me of a Wes Anderson film, which is basically me saying it's good!

"On the surface the name Noah and the Whale seems to be a mashup of biblical stories. In reality it’s an homage to Noah Baumbach’s film The Squid and the Whale. If you only listen to Noah and the Whale’s single “5 Years Time” you’ll think they were a sunny quirk-pop group. In reality their music is a tasty cake made from many ingredients, from twee to shoegaze. What’s that old expression about judging a book by something?"

here's the full story


Enjoy™

Dr. Appointment

She was wearing a pink toy stethoscope around her neck as she looked straight at me with her blue eyes and said, "Don't call me Hannah, call me Dr. Appointment."

SXSW Interactive: Day One

Well I left work around 12:30 and had to deposit my paycheck and then headed downtown to the Austin Convention Center (ACC). It took me awhile to find a place to park, and walk to the ACC. I walked and chatted with two guys who flew in from Australia, and would of stuck around with them if it wasn't for the fact that I still needed to check in and get my badge. So there was this HUGE virtually endless line that I had to get into. Two hours later I had my badge and my bag of swag and was on my way to my very first panel (what should of been my second) "Oooh, That's Clever! (Unnatural Experiments in Web Design)" by Paul Annett of Clearleft Ltd.
Paul gave a very entertaining and inspirational presentation. He started out by showing a video he made and posted on YouTube (as seen below)

He froze paused it and showed a clip that caught a lot of peoples attention of a part in the trick where it appears that he is holding two cards in one hand (when he should be holding one). So people began to feel like they figured out the trick and knew this little secreat.

He then compared that to little secrets in design such as "the arrow" in the "FedEx" logo (in the white space created in between the "E" & "X").
His next example was how his company Clear Left threw up this landing page for an idea they had for some software called Silverback. If you resize your browser window on their site, you will notice an interesting 3-D effect with the vines. This small little detail (that most people would never noticed) caught the attention of a few web designers who twittered about it and in one day their site received over 20,000 hits and half of the people signed up to receive updates. All this happened before they even had an actual product.

He then went on to show a ton of other examples of small little hidden gems people place on their websites that when found become these little secrets that people can't help but brag about knowing and spread the word.

My second and last panel of the day was AWESOME! It was a panel by Alex Bogusky of Crispin Porter+Bogusky (they are the advertising firm behind such things as "The Truth" campaign, Burger King ads, Volkswagen, & Mini) called, "Plan B: Can an Ad Guy Bring Bike Sharing to America?" It was kicked off with a FREE red or blue T-shirt that were passed out right before he grabbed the mic.
So he started out by talking about his company and how they are different from other advertising companies. how many offices & employees they have, and went through different solutions they came up with for companies. He started with "The Truth" campaign and how up until that point whenever people would market or advertise to kids negatively about cigarettes they would focus on 2 things, "They are un healthy" and "Gross." After questioning their target market they started to realize taht the youth didn't care if cigarrettes can kill you, and they didn't think they were gross. So they had to had to convince these people to take a different approach without actually proving to them that their idea would REALLY work. The main theme of his presentation was, "Sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."

The meat of his panel consisted of him telling us how the idea of bringing "Bike Sharing" to the US came about, and how it was very humble beginnings, and how after just talking and throwing out ideas with different people, that lead to getting in contact with someone else who lead to another person and now they have started the program in 4-6 cities as B-Cycle.

Two of the more interesting things Alex Bogusky said came in the question & answer portion after he was done with his presentation. Someone asked where he felt marketing was headed in the future. He then candidly said, "I have no clue." He went on to say that back in the day people were telling him that in 5-10 years there would be NO MAGAZINES (something I still here today) and that VHS was going to take over, because people would much rather watch something that read it. Here we are in 2009 and although magazine subscriptions are declining, they are still very much around, with brand new magazines still popping up all the time. Anyways he then said something that was right in line with my personal philosophy not only on marketing/advertising but also life which is, "I only look 15 minutes into the future."

Because in all reality it is virtually impossible to try and predict what is going to be happening in 5-10 years. There are far too many variables involved in these types of things. I mean for all we know Global Warming is going to swallow us all up in 5 years and there won't be ANY marketing at all...

Anyways I always try to stay grounded in the present. I don't want to spend my life looking in the past at, "what could of been." Nor do I want to look too far into the future at, "what could be waiting for me in the future." But rather I would like to just enjoy TODAY (I could go on and on with this subject so I will stop now).

The other thing he said was an interesting quote,

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

So that was day one of SXSWi (south by southwest interactive). I'm looking forward to a full day tomorrow jam packed with some potentially inspiring panels as well.

Why Mormons Build Temples

"Throughout history, the Lord has commanded His people to build temples. Temples are literally houses of the Lord. They are holy places of worship where individuals make sacred promises with God."

Comcast Goes Juno

Comcast went all Juno on us in their newest advertsing campaign, by singing parodies of a quirky little song by Kimya Dawson called "Loose Lips" (I was going to post the song here, but the last verse isn't very family friendly. They edited the song in the movie, and I really wish I could find THAT version somewhere, but click on the link and it will send you to the song if you want to hear it.) from the movie Juno and I like it. Not like it matters since we live in Time Warner land and don't have the option of having Comcast, I do enjoy watching their commercials, BUT I sure do miss The Slowskys.

The Dr. Sees a Penis!

Well the doctor is saying she is able to see two testicles and a penis in this very photo above. I never saw it, but I'll take her word for it. Besides I have already had an overwhelming feeling that it was a boy the entire time.

In this picture is where you can actually see a 3-D modeling of the entire little baby!

Proud

When I first got hired on as a designer with the wonderful team over at Practice Cafe I'm not even sure their website showed up in a "Google Search" for anything BUT a search for "Practice Cafe." Well a little short into a year of working their I was privledged to be able to take on the hefty job of redesigning their website. Well two more redesigns later and it is the beautiful site that I LOVE to inform people that I was a part of producing is now on the infinite abyss we all call the interweb (or is that just me?).

Well it quickly became a business goal to get ourselves ranked as high as possible in Google for a number of relevant searches. The main one being "Dental Marketing." So we set out a little over a year ago to improve our ranking in "Dental Marketing." So I dove in head first at researching "Search Engine Optimization" (SEO), and best practices in improving your ranking in Google. I quickly realized this was a very tricky little task. There is no solid formula or solid answer. Infact the more time went on it was almost as if, right when I got to the point where I was saying, "Hey I think I got a handle on this SEO business" I would quickly get a reality check of how much I DIDN'T know.

However with the help of a WONDERFUL team of copywriters in Angie Liddiard & Amanda Fuller, and some helpful hints and tricks from my good friend Noel Datko, we have successfully been able to implement a lot of tender love and care over the months and successfully reached page one in google in a handful of relevant and very competitive searches. In fact our visitors to our site per day has doubled if not tripled since I started working back in November of 2006.

So as you can see from the beautiful screen capture above we are currently residing in the NUMBER 5 out of 9,120,000 in a Google Search for the term "Dental Marketing."

Click the picture above for an enlarged image, or you can just go ahead and do a quick Google Search yourself right now for "Dental Marketing" and take a VERY short scroll on down to "Practice Cafe" and go ahead and click your way over to Practice Cafe to see how we are VERY capable at handling any and all of your Dental Marketing needs (ZING!)

Although I still feel like an amateur when it comes to SEO, I am also very happy and proud that all of our work over the year has REALLY paid off. So I am anxious to continue to learn, grow, and develop these skills and to continue to improve both Practice Cafe's website and the websites of all our clients. Each and every year the internet is becoming more and more important when it comes to a marketing budget, and how people want to market their company or business, and search engine optimization will continue to play a HUGE roll in the future of marketing in the world. So we are happy to be a part of this.

Keywords and Terms Practice Cafe ranks well in:

Dental Marketing: Page 1 – #5
Dental Practice Marketing: Page 1 – #10
Dental Marketing Services: Page 1 – #3
Dental Marketing Companies: Page 1 – #2
Dental Marketing for Less: Page 1 – #5
Professional Dental Marketing: Page 1 – #10
Dental Marketing Firms: Page 1 – #5
Dental Marketing Postcards: Page 1 – #5
Custom Dental Marketing: Page 1 – #2
Affordable Dental Marketing: Page 1 – #1
Dental Office Marketing Budget: Page 2 – #5
Dental Marketing Campaign: Page 2 – #1
Dental Logos: Page 2 – #7

Howm I Gon Get Clean!

Heather was gone at church for a youth activity. Hannah and I were watching "The Wonder Pets" when Hannah jumped up and said, "I need to take a bath!"

So I told her to hold on a second, so then she said, "I'm dirty..."

Then that turned into, "I'm dirty, dirty, dirty! Howm I gon get clean..." Over and over again bouncing around the house dancing.

So I grabbed the camera and I said, "Ok, if you sing your song for me into the camera then I will let you take a bath."

The song changed a little but it was still cute! Once the camera got turned on she forgot the, "Howm I gon get clean" part so she just hummed that part and decided to add on a few more words as she ran around the table and room.

Sincere Sounds for the Soul

Lately I've been tickling my eardrums with the sincere sounds of Jason Mraz. One of my favorite songs of the album is "I'm Yours" take it for a spin with the music player below. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

SXSW Interactive: 2009

For the past 4-5 years I've been wanting to go to SXSW Interactive (music and film as well...) but have never been able to afford the $495 to pay for the "badge." Lucky for me this year my wonderful boss Brian Liddiard was nice enough to pay my way as an opportunity for some continuing education to help improve my own person skill set as well as the companies reputua.

I am pretty excited to say the least. I'm really hoping to be able to run into a few people I've been following for the last 4-5 years (eh humm).

So for the past two days I've been spending some time going through the schedule and trying to figure out which aspects of the conference I want to make sure I don't miss. So if there is any chance that anyone else out there reading this is going let me know which things you are excited about seeing.

Giraffe Shirt Update

Well I think I gave everyone a fair amount of time to respond. So by my calculations I only got 7 people (counting Me, Heather, & Hannah) who said they would buy a shirt. Which puts me pretty far away from the 25 people I needed. So it looks like my dreams of making shirts will have to go back onto the shelf for now.

Thanks for everyone who got back in touch with me.

Giraffe Shirt

I'm really interested in getting a shirt that I designed a couple years ago produced. A couple years ago I tried submitting it to threadless, but it didn't survive the voting round. That was my most economical route to go, and a couple years ago I went through this period where I was dead set on getting a shirt onto threadless, because then it doesn't cost me anything, and I have a chance to have a ton of people also wearing my shirt. After a few rounds of getting denied over and over again I finally through in the towel.

Now I am trying to revive my love for designing my own shirts, but I need your help. So I am wondering how many people out there want a super dope "Giraffe Shirt." The minimum I have to have produced is 25 before I can have the shirts produced. I don't have enough money to front to have the 25 shirts produced with just the hope of selling them off and making my money back.

So here we are, can I find 25 people that would love to wear a giraffe shirt as much as I would? If a giraffe isn't good enough take a looksie at what other graphic t-shirts I have cooked up.

COST: $8.00 or $10.00 (plus shipping)

Harvey Danger: Little By Little

Psych had a special Friday the 13th episode on Friday the 13th. Where they played off of the old Friday the 13th movies, which was GREAT. During the episode they played a song that was familiar to me, but I couldn't recall who sang it or what the song was called. So I asked my friend Amanda (who works with me) if she knew who sang the song that went like this, “Paranoia, Paranoia they’re coming to get me...” So she said it was a Harvey Danger song called Flagpole Sitta. So I did a quick Google search and come to find out they have a relatively new album, and this what their website is saying:

"We are offering the entirety of our third album, Little by Little..., as a free download** (if you're curious why we're doing this, you can read our reasons here)."

(**Click on the title to head on over to their website for the FREE download).

Bloc Party

Bloc Party, 'This Modern Love' - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

I first heard about Bloc Party while perusing VIRB's music section one day. I have one of their CD's, and REALLY like it. I thought this video was pretty cool, how they just sing one of their songs right outside of a bar on the spur of the moment in the street.

Enjoy™

Yet Another Reason to Hate Internet Explorer

Just when you thought Internet Explorer was going to finally do something right, they go and do THIS, and totally redeem themselves...

A year ago Microsoft announced (through A List Apart) that standards compliant websites would be forced to opt into a standards rendering mode in IE8. The uproar from the web standards community was loud and clear: the default should always be render in standards compliancy mode. Microsoft backed down.

So it is with considerable surprise and anger to read that Microsoft has quietly gone back to their original position. The gist of it is if you want to be sure your site renders in standards compliant mode in IE, you have to explicitly opt into it. Otherwise you risk being blacklisted and thrown into IE7 Compatibility mode.

The danger here is that Microsoft don't seem to be collecting the reason behind why a visitor clicked on Compatibility View. So a couple of hundred curious people seeing if the Web Standards Project website works in IE7 Compatibility mode might be enough to stop the Web Standards Project's website from rendering perfectly in IE8. And the only way they can prevent that is to opt-in to the standards rendering mode. What message does that send to the web standards community when WaSP requires an explict opt-in to IE8 rendering?

*Full article "IE8 Blacklist: forcing standards rendering opt-in."

Don't Miss Tonight...

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.

Smile!

While I was gone in Dallas to play basketball with my brothers (which I played terrible, but had a good time) Heather & Hannah were invited to a birthday party for one of Hannah's friends (Thanks Lucy Monson for inviting Hannah!). At the party their was a small petting zoo with a pony for all the kids to ride. When I imagined Hannah riding the pony, this is the exact expression I envisioned her having. Which also happens to be my favorite Hannah smile!*

*I think it's better to see it in person, the camera has never seemed to capture it quite so well.