At work a couple of the designers and I decided that we would grow beards and then on May 5th cut them to mustaches for “Cinco de Mustache”. And it went as planned. Four or five of us had some nice mustaches. Well May 6TH came and everyone was back to clean faces or stubble, but I decided to keep the stache. And then the next day and the next and here I am now stroking my mustache and thinking why I don’t I do this more frequently.

Gotcha! Ha! That’s what I thought when I say this spoof. Pretty smart if you ask me.

I am excited to see Iron Man 2, though I think Theo is even more so (though he won’t be seeing it anytime soon). I printed out a poster of Iron man a couple of months ago (because I’m a geek like that), and Theo has really gravitated to it. Susan said the other day while at the gas station he kept pointing at the Iron Man advertisement saying something over and over, and then she finally figured out he was saying “iron man”. The show would probably be right up his alley. The other day he came into the bedroom while I was putting my socks on and with his pajama sleeve pointed it at me (his hand drawn in so it made a large barrel) and proceeded to “shoot me”. I guess us boys are just drawn to futuristic gadgets and weaponry.

I found this site today and it made me smile. I didn’t really dig too deep into the content, but if you pop over you’ll see what I mean. Salt Films.

Today I stumbled across this video and couldn’t believe how well filmed it was (make me wanna pull my bike out of the garage and pump up the tires). I had a mission companion while serving in Taiwan who seriously loved riding his bike, and I imagine this is how he rides now-a-days.

I apologize for what seems to be the only thing I blog or talk about lately (ActiveDen), but Susan can attest that it’s all I talk about in person too. It’s pretty consuming. I keep telling her, “baby when Activeden goes platinum…” and then it’s usually followed with some lofty dream of traveling the world, living abroad for months at a time, remodeling the house, buying a car, starting another adoption…

So far it’s been mildly successful. Each month is better than the last with a few exceptions and I’m constantly working on new ideas and projects to add to the portfolio. One day I’d love to see it over take my current salary.

Today though was a pretty good “feel good” moment. As you can see from the image above I received a comment on one of my files giving thanks and praise. This happens from time to time, but since I’ll never win any FWAs or CA awards for my stock work hearing from a real customer is pretty nice.

When nothing else is on TV and I’m just flipping through the channels often the travel channel delivers. One of the shoes that I really like is Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, and maybe it’s the fact that one of the places he visits the most often is Vietnam. Having 2 children from Vietnam secures the country deep in my heart. The other night while watching Susan and I just smiled and said how much we can’t wait to go back with our kids when they’re a bit older. I miss the food, smells, sites, the noise. It’s a beautiful country.

The other day I stubbled upon this book illustrated by Sanjay Patel. It’s fantastic. The Ramayana is full or drama, romance, action, bears and monkeys, gods and goddess, demons… I honestly couldn’t put the book down after I opened it; I had to read the story and look at the great illustrations that depict this epic tale.

Sanjay is a great illustrator and if the book isn’t proof enough that he is he also works at Pixar. Great talent.

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who doesn’t LOVE Zooey Deschanel (my friend was on set with her for the filming of a PSA a couple months back and said she was just so beautiful in person… way better than in the movies). And we all know she can sing thanks to her little christmas caroling in Elf, but Susan had me get her latest album that just came out yesterday. It’s a pretty good listen. It has a very vintage sound to it (I would guess like 40s or 50s). It lacks a little in sound quality (that’s kind of a throw back to older recordings), but the lyrics and tunes are fantastic.

If the video above doesn’t have you rushing over to iTunes to buy the album then we can’t be friends anymore. Ok just joking.

I don’t know what it is but I love headphones and these are the latest I have my eyes on. Maybe it has to do with the fact that at work sometimes headphones are the only way to gain a little solitude working from my 5 foot cubicle. And it’s not like I don’t have fantastic headphones already that I LOVE, but the thought of this pair makes me weak in the knees (I mean sheep leather ear cups), and it’s not like I’ve bought oodles of headphones in my life. Maybe 2 or 3 pairs in 10 years.

From the reviews the P5′s sound as good as they look. I know they’re such a luxury item, but they are now on my list wish along with a whole lot of other gadgety.

Unfortunately we aren’t buying this beauty (I wish). The other day after my haircut I thought I’d drive down Jefferson Ave. (a street in Ogden that has some incredibly hugh old homes and in the past few years undergone some major rehabilitation), and couldn’t believe my eyes. There have been numerous houses on this street over the years that I’ve entertained the idea of buying with the cost ranging from $225,000 for a dump to $698,000 for the house that’s actually just to the south of this one (it’s fully restored and anywhere else in the US would be double to triple that).

Last night I took Susan and the kids on a drive by after dinner to see it (Susan made me take the above photos). But there are major reasons I wouldn’t want to live on Jefferson and thus why this house is not going to be ours. One, it’s in a ghetto, and I mean ghetto. Prostitution, drugs, crime, is all within walking distance (granted we only live 10 or less blocks away right now from this house). Jefferson Ave itself is really beautiful and there are now only 2-3 house on the street that look as bad as this one; everything else is restored to it’s former beauty. I’m sure as time passes other parts of the neighborhood will improve, but how do you get over the fact that right now it’s scary and you fear for you family’s safety? Dang it. I’ve always wanted to live in a victorian beast. This house probably has more rooms and space than we have need or would ever have need for. I was joking with Susan that we could all have our own bedrooms plus our own offices. I really do wish I was braver. I’ll probably never get a chance to buy a victorian restoration project for the price of dirt again.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve added a few new files to activeden (the stock flash website I sell a my flash bits on). The most notable is a full website/ image gallery called Sideways. The name comes from the way you scroll sideways to view the gallery (mouse wheel supported).

There’s a ton more activeden files that I’m pursuing between early hours and late nights (both HTML and Flash). In fact in a weeks time you’ll be able to own a wordpress blog just like this one if you’d like I just need to polish up a few final touches and bugs.

All I do seems to be work though. I mean there’s a few ours with the kids and a few with Susan at night, but the bulk of my time is spent designing and coding these days. I’m just considering this the season of hard work though. On a recent project runway Lauren Hutton said (I paraphrase), “that she wasn’t the best because of her raw talent, but because she worked four times harder than any one else.” And I’m certainly not the most hard working—there are plenty people out there that work longer hours and hard jobs than me. But when people ask me what I do for fun or if I did anything over the weekend or the night before the first thing into my mind is I worked on this file or that project. Unlike my friends’ response: “I went skiing on Saturday, or snowshoeing with my kids…”

I’ll get there. Right now I’m just trying to secure an out or a security blanket if I need to find new work or want to go freelance full-time again.

Feel free to check out the new file or you can check out this versions I threw on the web to highlight our trip to hawaii we took a few months back (see I guess it’s not all work). Ha.

When Flight of the Conchords announced it wasn’t coming back for a third season I was a bit sad. I keep hoping Bret and Jemaine will pop up some where (Jemaine did but only in that really terrible movie by Jared Hess Gentlemen Broncos). Mel the crazed fan show up on Modern Family. I thought it really fantatic though to see Murray (Rhys Darby) playing pretty much Murray in an HP commercial.

On another note I am back to blogging. My goal was to start again the first of the year, but wanted to do it with style and that meant waiting on my new wordpress theme. Which I need to finish polishing this week, but I’m anxious to start publishing my ramblings to the intertubes. So here you tubes. Cheers.

Love her.

I’ve got a feeling that 30 will be a good year for me. Here’s to thirty, flirty, and thriving.

On my drive to work today I saw my old Jeep, and for a brief moment I longed for having her back in my care—I drove that car for years and couldn’t believe it had been over a whole year that I sold that junker. It was quite a nostalgic moment and then I stomped on the gas in the GTI and quickly all the memories of that jeep quickly blurred into the back of my mind (I was lucky to if I ever got that jeep to freeway speeds).

When ever the boys over at Hoefler & Frere-Jones create a new typeface I want nothing more than to go and drop a few bones to add the beautiful little characters to my font library. But alas I realize I just don’t have that kind of cash. Dang it.

I’ve been very absent from my blog the past couple of months, and yet I have much news I need to post and update everyone (like leaving my freelance life and working for a large design firm machine).

It really is amazing to think that a year ago we were celebrating Theo’s birthday with sponge bob cup cakes and wondering what our little man would be like. He’s better than we could have ever hope for. He’s a real sport and so easy going. It’s tough not to to love the kid even with his constant drooling (no he’s not teething the kid just drools). Happy birthday Theo. I hope 2 is your best year yet.

I have to admit there’s still a lot of getting used to the second kid. I remember when we got Gem life was pretty upside-down trying to find normal again, and with Tuan (Theo) it hasn’t been much different.

We do have a good times though, and here’s some evidence (yes it’s yet another photo and video of my kid, but they’re cute).

And a video of Gem’s ABCs (bless her heart she really can sing them just she gets on camera and I think half the alphabet goes out the window).

Nothing too exciting for our July 4TH—BBQ with great friends and neighborhood pyrotechnics. Both Gem and Theo had the time of their lives (Gem was in heaven riding bikes and scooters down the sidewalk).

Growing up I was very fortunate (still am) to have a great father. He has done so much for me over the course of my life and I could never say thank you enough. Today as I was thinking back on the many great things he’s done for me one of my favorites is when he became my little league baseball couch because no other team in Pleasant View wanted me (or the other dozen looser kids in the neighborhood). I’ll never forget how he coached our crap team that summer and with his positive coaching and constantly telling us, “it’s just a game” and “we’re just here to have fun” he turned our little team of misfits and untalented kids into the team to beat. We didn’t loose a single game that summer and I know 100% of that was because of my dad.

The photo above is from one of the many fishing trips he took us on, and even though I don’t necessarily like to fish now I certainly enjoyed the trips with him and my brothers (FYI: in the photo the blond kid on my left is not my Brother it’s my cousin TJ). Rodney you are the worlds greatest daddy-o.

On another note I love my kids and even though they are monkeys most of the time and I do love them. They both make me really proud and I hope I’m being as good a father as my Dad is. This video is of the 2 monkeys coming home from church. Every Sunday Gem insist on jumping on this big metal plate, and now she’s got Tuan in on it too. Somewhere in their monkey hearts I think they’re wishing me a happy father’s day.

“I have done gift cards for Target that are in stores nationwide and animations for Nickelodeon that run 24 hours a day worldwide on cable TV,” Melinda Beck, an illustrator who is based in Brooklyn, wrote in an e-mail message to Google rejecting its offer. “Both of these jobs were high-profile and gave my work great exposure but both clients still paid me.”

Maybe it’s time to give bing a try.

Japanese photographer Shinichi Maruyama, now living in New York, has created some stunning images. It’s almost like he’s created traditional Japanese/ Chinese calligraphy only instead of on paper they’re in mid air. The photo of how he creates some of the images is just as amazing as the works themselves. I wouldn’t mind owning one of his prints. Really amazing.

We both thought the Carmen typeface looked smart and would work perfect for the phrase “Did you think to pray”. The print comes in loads of colors and both Susan and I have discussed doing a limited edition larger print (think poster size), but first I guess we’ll see how is sells.

If you’re looking to bring a little “holy spirit” into your home head over to Susan’s store.

I think just about every guy has a thing for a mustang once in his life. Mine happened after that show with Nicolas Cage and Angie Pit (Gone in 60 Secs), but it lasted only for a fleeting moment. Well the team over at FirstBorn Multimedia have come up with a pretty amazing site to help sell the 2010 Ford Mustang.

One of the nice things about the site is the size. As people’s computer screens get bigger and wider it’s a tough call as a web designer—how do you create a website that looks good on a laptop and also on a 24 inch screen? Most websites today are built at 960 pixels wide, and even though the Mustang site is the same width it feels much bigger than that thanks to it’s large graphics and the great use of background images.

Did I also mention the site’s a 100% Flash? You can checkout the site yourself by clicking here.