The Life of a Design Director

OK, so this week I confirmed what I had always thought about design directors. They are too busy attending meetings, sending e-mails, or typing up spreadsheets to actually design anything. Week one at my new job has been a bit of an adjustment.


Highlights for the week include:

-Ordering a temporary logo for the lobby till the office renovation gets underway. Evidently some of the guys in the shop were a bit too eager about starting the demolition. There hasn't been a logo in the lobby for three months now.

-Telling the president that we need to keep our detailer for another month. She was going to be laid off today, and her position transfered to Austin. We are going to need the help.

-Going from working on one modeling platform to four. I only know two of them really well, the other two are works in progress.

-Coordinating the transfer of all detailing files created by the Dallas office to a new modeling format and sending them to Austin. These files are three plus years worth of work. This is the reason I asked for the additional month for the detailer. This involves thousands of files and probably the same amount of hours to complete.

-Less stress! WoooHooo! The workload is much more manageable at Imagecraft...for now. I'd bet that I will be eating my words before long.

-The video card for my computer evidently doesn't support the correct aspect ratio for my monitor. So circles appear as slightly oval, and squares are rectangular. This is a bit of a problem when you design things for a living.

Getting Back to My Roots

Well sort of. As many of you already know, today is my last day working at Derse. A couple weeks ago I was offered the design director position at Imagecraft Exhibits. This is the same place where I started working as an exhibit designer almost eight years ago. I have worked at Derse for almost three years and gained some valuable experience. But after receiving this offer, I thought it was best for my career to make the move "back home".

Job changes are typically very stressful. But for some reason, I haven't been stressed at all about the decision to change companies. Maybe it's because the transition will be an easy one since I know just about everyone who works for Imagecraft. Maybe it is because we aren't relocating anywhere this time. Who knows...All I know at this point is this job will be what I make it since I will now be the one calling the shots.

If you ever need a trades show booth designed, just give me a call.

Miranda's School Pictures

Miranda wanted to share her annual school pictures with everyone. There are a few missing years, but it was funny to me to see how she has changed over the years....all for the better of course.

1998


















2000


















2003


















2004


















2005


















2006


















2007

Fly Fish Texas Festival

Saturday, Miranda and I took a little road trip to Athens, Texas. The Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center is located there and every year they have a fly fishing festival called Flyfish Texas. There are rod vendors pushing their latest creations, kayak dealers trying to get you to try out a boat, seminars, demonstrations, fishing in the ponds for kids, and many other activities. We sat through a few seminars on saltwater flyfishing, fishing for trout in Colorado, and flyfishing for carp. Some were more informative than others, but we learned quite a bit.

I got to cast the new TFO Axiom rods, and was drooling after I tried out a couple different rod weights. I have never been able to cast a whole flyline (100'+) as easily as I can with those. There will definitely be one on my Christmas list next year.

Miranda was content to keep me company and read her book. She is a good sport. We both found the Freshwater Fisheries aquariums and displays very interesting. There are some BIG fish swimming around in that place. I highly recommend a visit to the Center if you are in the area. Sorry, no pictures this time - we forgot the camera.

The Grand Duchy of Daveation

I have been playing this game for a few weeks and thought I would share with everyone. It's a pretty passive game where you setup your own country and run it however you like. You can be a dictator that rules with an iron fist, a laid back liberal leader, or anything in between. The game typically puts a funny twist on the issues you rule on. I check in every few days to rule on issues that are raised on a daily basis. It has been fun running my own country. Check it out:

http://www.nationstates.net

My nation is at http://www.nationstates.net/daveation . The Grand Duchy of Daveation is going pretty well. Somehow I have legalized marajauna - still working on quelling the reefer madness. I have a awesome uranium mining industry, and I'm about to wipe away minimum wage. Crime is rampant and I am bringing in extra police to beat criminals into submission. Oh yea - there is no minimum age for gambling so kids are spending their lunch money on blackjack. Good times....

I Spoke Too Soon

OK, so I was wrong about only getting to see snow once a year in Texas....very wrong. It started snowing this afternoon and it looked like a blizzard for about an hour. I headed home from work around 2:45 after reports that the roads were getting bad. Just about two hours later I finally arrived home. This drive typically only takes 25 minutes or so. But not today. The roads weren't really the problem, but the traffic was. Most of the Metroplex was total gridlock. But after the stress of the drive left, the snow on the trees really did look nice. We ended up with around 2 - 3 inches at the house, but larger totals were reported around our area.

Here's a few pictures from this afternoon. It will probably be gone by tomorrow, but it is nice to look at for now. I may have a different perspective after rush hour tomorrow however.

The Obligatory Snow Blog Entry

It seems like every year there is just one notable winter weather happening in Texas. This year it came in March. We received about 2 inches of snow on Monday night. Miranda and I left Bible study to find a winter wonderland on the drive home. The streets were a bit slushy, but not slick at all. That didn't stop some drivers from going 30 on the highway. Here are a few pictures of the show while it was here. By this afternoon all the snow had already melted. That's the thing about Texas snow - you better get that camera out fast because it won't be around for long.

Mason and I had a bit of a snowball fetch session in the backyard. He couldn't ever figure out where the snowball went when it hit the ground. So he just improvised and chomped on some of the snow clumps.

The Democratic Process

Dave and I went to vote tonight in the Texas presidential primary. Voting is a complicated process, and we're fairly intelligent people.

Wrinkle Number One.
We were upset when we arrived at our voting location to find that it was the site for the primary we were not planning to vote in. (To keep politics out of the blog, I won't disclose whether it was the Republican or Democrat polling place.) The other site is a 15 minute drive away; we were there at 6:35. Instead of rushing to the other site, we decided to vote in this primary since we did have an opinion.

Wrinkle Number Two.
The elections officer gave the ballot to me backwards. So, I did the back first.

Wrinkle Number Three.
After flipping the ballot over, I discovered that I was supposed to be marking an "X" in the box. I had been marking with a check mark. So, no worries, I changed my check marks to X's. Then, I looked at the poster in the voting area to see that I was supposed to fill in the box. Arghhhh. For a third time, I marked each of my choices.

Like I said initially, I'm an educated person. But I had trouble voting. Our elections system is not user friendly. Oh well, in four years, we'll know more. Right?

Tree Trimming

You get a pile of limbs and brush that looks like this . . .

. . . when you limb up the trees to look like this.

Dave spent Saturday raising the canopy on the trees out front. The trees look so much better. You can see the house a lot better, too. Dave has spent two other Saturdays trimming up trees in the backyard. The limb pile was significantly smaller; Dave has been cutting the limbs up and throwing them away one trash can at a time. Dave and I will be looking for the dump to dispose of this pile; otherwise, he'll be trimming until June.

Thankfully, we were able to donate some of the twigs to Keaton for her school project. She is building a hut on her presentation board. We could help her build a life-size hut with all the limbs we have.

FREEDOM!!!!!

WooooHooooo! I am free from cheap foods. Our $3 a day fasting ended last night at midnight. We still had $2.94 burning a hole in our pockets last night, so we decided to go to Wendy's a hit the dollar menu for a small tasty treat to end our week. That junior bacon cheesburger could be the best thing I have ever eaten!

Aside from all the comedy that transpired over the week, I really did learn quite a few things from this experience. First and foremost is that hunger isn't a fun thing to endure. I can't imagine how people who have to cope with hunger on a daily basis make it thorough a day. In the future, I am going to be much more generous to charities that help to feed people. As for the actual food we ate, it wasn't very appetizing. No offense directed at Miranda's preparation, but there isn't a whole lot of culinary creativity that you can do on $3 a day. I also learned the true meaning of covet this week. I was even going crazy over the smell of a coworkers lunch of McDonald's....and I hate McDonald's food. The last thing I learned was that you will despise food commercials when you are hungry and your next meal consists of beans and rice. Those commercials are surprisingly more effective when you are hungry.

After all was said and done, I lost 5 1/2 lbs in seven days. Miranda and I are thinking of writing a $3 a day diet book. Thankfully that week is behind us. Up next is no credit card week. Surprisingly enough, up to this point this "fast" has been more of an inconvenience for Miranda instead of myself. I gotta get to the bank!