Greater Satellites

The following post was completed inspired by the following website: http://www.pinkfloyd.co.uk/obtw/

Now, my love of Pink Floyd has nothing to do with this website. For a site running entirely in Flash, it’s a great effort and a design that matches up completely with the band as I understand them. It does look like total ass in Firefox for me currently, but I first saw and was able to appreciate it at home in Safari.

I see a lot of “design is…” wallpapers cropping up on the interwebs lately and I think they are, much like Ron Burgundy, the balls. I have my own hat I’d like to throw into this ring, however, only it’s in the form of words and not so much a clever wallpaper… Would it be cool to have a thousand word essay in wallpaper format? Hmmm…

I digress.

Design is about making what the visitors sees relevant to the subject. If that Pink Floyd site above was just a black background with the signature spectrum somehow implemented, a long track list with images of each album cover in a list format, I would not be as impressed because it pales in comparison to the creativity of the band. Instead, the site is relative to the subject (in this case, Pink Floyd) and embodies a level of creativity shared on par with the music it is representing. The subtle visuals, including of music (which I normally hate), and the presentation really stand out… Much like the music of Pink Floyd.

The reason Greater Satellites hasn’t had a design in, oh - I don’t know, a year now is because I’m not sure how to relate what I see to my visitors. I don’t need to be flashy, but I have a personal like of shininess and reflections on websites. I don’t have to include anything about space, but I personally enjoy it and would like to incorporate it in a tasteful way.

After some experimenting, testing certain elements with friends and family, I’m sure I’ll find the perfect mix of a design that will both showcase my talents and be relevant to my visitors. Until then… Just keep waiting. I guarantee* it won’t take another year.

* - This is not a guarantee

It’s hard to know where to begin after leaving off writing for so long. My initial intentions for getting this domain set up was basically so I could have my own place to blog but ever recently I’ve either shirked the task or just downright did not have enough time. Well let’s hope I can change that all around. I’m trying my best to post at least once a week for the rest of the year. Call it a late New Year’s Resolution. Let’s get this recap under way…

Since last I blogged, a little over a month ago, quite a bit has happened. Nothing huge, but all things worth mentioning for memory’s sake: Two one-month-increment anniversaries on the road to the big one year, first small vacation with the lady, Jimmy Buffet concert with Denise, a promotion at work, some minor construction in the room area, and not to mention Jackie’s birthday tomorrow. Come with me on this journey…

I’ll follow the order that I listed them above just to keep everything nice and tidy, which puts us at the 8th and 9th month anniversary days. In case you didn’t know the day is the 15th of every month. How I remember is pretty cheap, but it serves it’s purpose as my personal mnemonic device. For those of you who’ve seen V For Vendetta, the day Jackie and I officially started going out was the fifteenth of November, so I modified it to say “Remember, remember, the fifteenth of November” and since then I have not forgotten. We’re usually pretty chill about out anniversary dates, as they’ve been pretty variable throughout the week (only a few have fallen on a party night [read: Friday or Saturday]). We usually just relax and watch a movie, have some dinner, and enjoy each other’s company. Two nights ago I bought dinner from Bennigans, gave Jackie a card (I’m such a sap sometimes), and we just relaxed watching some TV and playing around on the computer. Last night we also got together and celebrated Jackie’s birthday a few days early because her parents are leaving for a week of partying in the mountains (it’s their anniversary). It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows her that she had a Superman cake (for the 2nd consecutive year, if I’m not mistaken), which I’ll have pictures of soon enough. After the commotion died down and most of her family left or went to sleep we watching Employee Of the Month, laughed a bit at that, and then called it a night. As I was leaving her house two big motherfuckin raccoons ran by my legs about 2 feet from where I was standing. I’m actually not sure if they were big raccoons or not because that’s the first time I’ve ever seen one that close, but they were the size of small dogs and looked mean as hell. I’m just realizing this is my second run in with a wild animal I’ve never seen up close before in the past month, because when we went on vacation to Promised Land State Park…

…We ran into a big ass BEAR! There were two, actually, one cute cub which I snapped a picture of and a shit-yourself-big mama bear. Needless to say, well all slept in our cars that night. Let’s back up just a moment to the start of it… I had Jury Duty on the day we planned to leave (July 13th). I wanted to have that shit wrapped up way earlier that week, but things happen and Jackie and I didn’t end up leaving for the State Park until well after 6 (it may have even been 7). Regardless, we start trekking up there in her car blasting through traffic and listening to some tunes. We got a little lot lost but it’s all fun because we pretty much rule and made a great time out of it. By the time 11pm rolled around and we still weren’t where we needed to be we called Denise to let her know we’re hotel-ing it up. Turns out we were about 30-45 minutes off course, and we still needed to set up a tent, eat, and eventually get some sleep. We drove right in to a Best Western and shacked up for the evening. We hit the bar downstairs and had a few drinks. Jackie actually only had part of a 7&7, mainly because, well, it’s a fuckin 7&7. After that we went back up to our room and eventually went to sleep. Camping rules.

The next morning we awoke, showered, and rolled out shortly before 11. We bought a map, got our bearings, filled up the gas tank, and bounced our way to the state park. It was a nice ride through a variety of quaint little neighborhoods that you’d think only existed in movies. It was a great day to drive and just be outside in general… We arrived at the State Park shortly after noon. We set up our tent in record time and were surprised at how spacious it is. Made some lunch and just loafed around for a bit until we decided to play some volleyball and toss the disc around for a bit. Volleyball went ok… I’m not too good at it, but always willing to try again (on the sand of the beach, maybe?). After Volleyball Denise and I played frisbee for a bit while Jackie and Kathy talked, took pictures, and took in the scenery. Denise phone was stolen (naggers!), and that was the beginning of the end of that trip. When we got back to the camp site, we cooked up some delicious dinner (burgers and dogs, the American way) and tried to get comfortable. I found it difficult to do so up there between the bugs and lack of seating (bench vs. rock vs. ground). After making smores, one of our neighbors told us there was a bear cub in a tree on his site. We checked it over to verify he wasn’t bullshitting us and boom, bear cub. Now I’ve heard, along with everyone else camping, that wherever baby goes, mommy is sure to follow. We didn’t see mommy right away, because she was hiding from us (which in retrospect is kind of funny, considering she was like an 800 pound black bear… how do you hide?). We were all pretty spooked and it wasn’t until our fire died that mommy came out to play. After seeing that big MF’er, we decided to regroup and take some action. I intended to run right into the bear and skewer it with a plastic fork a la Troy, but everyone said stuff like “It’s a bear, you will die” etcetera, etcetera so I decided instead to just wrap up our food as best we could and head for the safety of glass and metal… the cars. Jackie, Denise, and I slept in Jackie’s car and Kathy slept in hers (only Asians could possibly sleep comfortably in Hondas).

We woke up around 6AM, packed everything up, and rolled out. We hit Perkins on the way out and I bought breakfast because everyone looked like they needed a pick-me-up, and then started rolling home. We arrived home in the early afternoon and dispersed. Total vacation time: 3 days, 2 nights. Total time Jackie and Andrew actually camped: 0. One night in a hotel, one night sleeping in the car. We rock.

The next big event was the Jimmy Buffet concert. There’s not much to say about it other than the fact that it was fantastic. I had a blast and got wrecked off of Landshark Lager (a thumbs up in my book) and huge frosty Margaritas. We were successfully able to sneak alcohol in and although I saw two separate instances of man-wang, I saw enough sets of boobies for it not to be considered a gay concert. Jimmy is good people in my book.

Another short but noteworthy mention is my raise/promotion at work. I won’t go in to salary details on here because I’m not trying to be braggadocios about what I make, but let’s just say I received a little over $2 more per hour and I’m in a position to have as many as one person working directly beneath me. Fun times, indeed.

I tore my wall apart two weekends ago and put up some new awesome shelves to store my books, CD/DVD media, and random crap that I didn’t want in my desk. This past weekend I also bought a new desk chair that’s no less than 114% more comfortable than the old one. What does all of this mean for raising my at-home computing productivity? Nada. But it certainly does look nice.

Last, but certainly not by any stretch of the imagination least, is Jackie’s B-day tomorrow. Now I can’t really re-cap it since it didn’t happen yet and I don’t own a flux capacitor, but it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s going to be one hell of a good time. There will be pictures, oh yes, there will be pictures documenting the whole evening and I’m totally looking forward to it. Last year at Jackie’s birthday was the first time we actually truly hung out and I started grasping just how awesome she really is. One might say that was the night that kick started it all, so it’s kind of a warm and fuzzy feeling for me being out with her again, a year later, only playing a better role in her life. The role of boyfriend extraordinaire (her words, not mine [ok, they were my words]). Look forward to more blogs over the coming weeks so I don’t have to write long diatribes like this any friggin more.

…I end up slacking off again.

This is the story of every website I’ve ever had since the beginning… The URL for which I cannot consciously recall.  I all I remember was that it was an Angelfire.com website about cars…

 Sidenote: I found the URL of a site I worked on a hell of a long time ago with my friend Dan.  This site pre-dates my high school era, so be gentle (when judging both the content AND design) –> http://www.geocities.com/gottheliphe

Anyway, every day I’m in here I start bangin out at least one, often times two templates for sites that aren’t my own.  Meanwhile my site has been a splash screen for the past 5 months.  It sucks.  By the time I arrive home and sit at my computer, the last thing I want to focus on is designing another site.  It’s just not the same anymore (unfortunately) because web design went from being a hobby to a jobby… It starts to lose it’s appeal after the first 8 hours a day I spend on it.

REGARDLESS NONETHELESS:

I will finish my site, even if it’s only a few static pages with minimal content.  I will fill it up as I go, because I feel like I have a lot to offer in the vein of design and video on this crazy internet of ours, and I’ll be damned if my voice goes unheard for much longer.

Things That Web Design Will Now Take Precedence Over: Eating, Sleeping, Cleaning, Relaxing, Napping, and other web-related design endeavors.

Things That Web Design Will Not Take Precedence Over: Jackie, Family, Friends, Work (damn it), Weekend Fun, Thursday nights.

I just noticed that Wordpress looks really different on a PC than on a Mac. I kind of like the aesthetics on the Mac better, but I have a strong bias.

Anyway, here I am blogging at work. I think I may do this at least once a day. I work really hard in burst mode to get a lot done so I can relax and double check my work to make sure it’s accurate and well-done. In my free time, perhaps even on the old lunch break I’ll take a moment to reflect on my day thus far.

A semi-sad realization dropped on me recently like a Mack truck: working in a job like mine (doing design, coding, etc) is creatively draining, whereas other jobs I’ve held (office work, appraising houses, etc) are creatively restrictive. I’ve basically found the amount of design-centric work I do outside of this job has dropped to practically nothing unless I have an extreme desire to accomplish a set task (example: last night getting this blog set up, wrapping up the design of the new site). I’m going to try my very hardest to get everything all together and find a balance. I admire people who have a great balance in their lives.

Can I also say, as a total aside, that the new Camaro design is probably one of the most bangin things I’ve ever seen. I hope they take that out of concept and make it a reality. I would totally spring for one (if I had a spare 30-40 grand laying around).

Well, it looks like it’s back to work time for Andrew…. ::yawn::

I’m sorry, January. You know I didn’t mean that. I was just playing, that’s all.

I wanted to update because I haven’t written anything in quite a bit. So far this month has gone by very quickly and it shows no signs of slowing, either. I’ve worked a lot and played a little… which is something I would ultimately like to change, if possible. I’m just so tired after work that I feel like doing little-to-nothing. Couple that with the fact that this weather is getting more bitter by the day and you have the perfect formula for creating a shut-in.

Either way, I’m now taking steps to rectify that and hopefully see friends more often than I currently do (rarely). Goal number one is to get the car running by the end of the month. Just get some decent insurance going and have it inspected pre-emptively so there are no unexpected issues that crop up when driving to and from somewhere important. Goal number two is to buy some decent winter clothes to combat this stupid weather. It sounds silly, but I don’t own a really good winter coat that I like wearing. So this weekend I’m gonna buy a heavy duty Carhartt/Dickies work jacket or hood, so I don’t have to keep layering the shit out of myself everywhere I go. Goal number three also happens this weekend: get another god damn cell phone. I’ve lived in the dark ages long enough. I’m going to sign up for Cingular (soon to become AT&T) and get me a Blackberry Pearl so I can be one of the cool kids again. The job now affords me all kinds of interesting stuff, so I’m definitely sticking around there because they appreciate the work I do, and they compensate me fairly for the work performed. Gotta love respect in the workplace.

That’s all for now, kids. By the end of the month I also intend to have my new website provisioned at the very least. Maybe a February opening. So stay tuned for all that good stuff.

So it’s come to my attention that a lot of people don’t know that I have a job now. I guess I didn’t necessarily announce it because I didn’t want to jinx myself, but I think it’s safe to say that after a few days of work I’m really digging the new place. Also, because of the job, you can’t yell at me for not being online at 4am anymore. Those are the rules. I traded in my insanely liberal ways in lieu of some structure in my life.

Background Info: The company is Intuit Solutions, one of the premiere hosting companies/Pro Stores resellers in Philly. In case you’re unfamiliar, Pro Stores is just an easy solution to simultaneously sell your merch on a business website and Ebay. I’m in the design/development department and picking up more responsibility by the hour. I like the job because it’s a relatively easy-going atmosphere with good people and good tunes. I’ve done a bit of design work thus far, interacted with some clients, and tomorrow I’ll be setting up my first store online (exciting, but in that nerdy way). Things are going great and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this job will be a keeper (at least for a while).

Other than that there’s not much to say. Been hanging out with Jackie a lot, watching movies, getting into some new music, and being in a jolly, Christmas-y mood. I really can’t wait until the big day gets here, I’m psyched. I have some good gift ideas, and with a bit of luck I’ll have ample funds to get people everything they need.

On a related note, this is post #300!. I’ve decided to do something really cool for the next post. I’m thinking something along the lines of “I’m GREAT! The Best Of Gorm: Over 300 Posts And Counting, A Biopic.” as a title. We’ll see, it’s still in the development phases. That’s all for now.