Sucks to be him

Aaron — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:37:04 +0000

On the evening of Monday, March 1, a poor guy in Montesano Washington crashed his car into a power pole, but escaped without injury. After he called his friends for a ride, he decided to relieve himself in the ditch when he accidentally urinated on the downed power line he didn’t see on the ground, electrocuting himself in the process.

The more I thought of how many unlucky things had to happen in sequence for this to happen, I came up with image:

It has since been determined that the man only touched the power line, causing the fatal electrocution, and only happened to be urinating at the time. That latest information would, of course, proportionally increase the size of the Murphy’s Law circle while decreasing the size of the Darwin’s Theory circle. That is, if this were in any way scientific.

I think there’s a market for these

Aaron — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:25:21 +0000

Ever had one of those “permanent earplugs” kind of days? Yeah, me too.

Simple > Complex

Aaron — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:46:23 +0000

I have no idea what happened to me during the night. Whatever it was, I woke up with a strangely-deep appreciation for the simpler things.

Saturday’s time was spent in between a second birthday party for the child of a family friend, an organic, humanely-raised turkey tasting at Whole Foods, a nap, and then a viewing of Food Inc., the new-ish food documentary. Nothing groundbreaking I guess, but maybe it was just a day spent at a low-enough intensity level that my brain had a chance to recharge.

Maybe it was the fact that I was only on a computer long enough to figure out what I had done to hose this rarely-updated blog, time on the iPhone Twitter application notwithstanding. Perhaps it was that I managed to get about twice as much sleep yesterday as I normally do. Or maybe its the delightfully low-tech Moleskine pocket notebook I bought the other night that have been itching to start using.

Whatever it is, I feel like I have a new perspective on things, a much simpler one.

I went to a coffee shop and didn’t immediately plug in the laptop and get online. Rather, I sipped my coffee, enjoyed a danish and talked to the people sitting around me. I noticed with an abnormal acuity the stress level of the folks around who were having problems getting online, or finding a seat near a power outlet. Yes, I’m on my laptop now, but using WriteRoom, it’s retro green-text-on-black singularity almost calming.

I changed my default web browser back to Safari from Firefox. Sure, I’ll still use it for web testing, but for personal browsing, why shouldn’t I use the one that gives me the best personal experience? Do I really need fifteen plug-ins and a host of add-ons to read the web sites I go to? Not really.

Perhaps the rest of the day will be set aside for a drive in the beautiful Phoenix Fall weather, or a good healthy meal and time spent in the yard.

Either way, I’ll leave my list of work projects for tomorrow.

Found an old friend, sort of.

Aaron — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:02:08 +0000

Cleaning out some seldom-visited areas on my laptop in preparation for a clean system install, I came across an illustration I did a couple of years ago. Meet Jitters:

iPhone painting of the day

Aaron — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 06:07:57 +0000

The fact that July 2009 Is going down in history as the hottest month ever in Phoenix may have had something to do with this picture. I’m just saying.

Type as design

Aaron — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:55:29 +0000

One of the personal projects I’ve wanted to do for a while is a typography-based poster. Playing around with the idea that communication is a two-way street (communicator and recipient), it seemed like it would be a good candidate for a typographic attempt.

Just in case the words aren’t legible at this size, the road and dividing lines are made up of the repeating five words: ideas, imagery, thoughts, opinions, and feelings, which I thought comprises the majority of what we try to communicate, both verbally and non-verbally. The use of the different fonts (over 100) drives home the idea that there are more than one opinion, more than one idea, thought, etc.

I’ll probably keep polishing this, then see what it looks like in a large-format printout. It may look good on the office wall.

Coffee shop shelves

Aaron — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:43:26 +0000

Hanging out at Starbucks, trying to catch the interesting colors on the sale cabinet.

iPhone painting of the day

Aaron — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:50:25 +0000

I may have to start a new feature on these iPhone paintings. I’m ridiculously impressed with the quality and the user experience of the new “Brushes” application. It’s perfect for those times you’re in a boring meeting and would much rather be finger painting.

Today’s project:

So I drank the Kool-Aid

Aaron — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:16:52 +0000

Over the weekend I finally got off the fence as far as the decision to get an iPhone is concerned. I know, I’m not exactly an early adopter when it comes to spending money.

I’ve had this for two days now, and while I’m obviously still getting to know the technology, I can see that this little gadget is going to quickly become an integral part of my life.

Not only is it my primary phone, but from here I can create client invoices, surf the web, rent movies, paint a picture and make dinner reservations.

You can even hook it up to your blog. Right now, even though I’m surrounded by “real” computers, I’m typing this on my iPhone.

Why?

Because now, I can.

Yosemite is a tough act to follow

Aaron — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:30:37 +0000

Spend some time in a place as beautiful as Yosemite, it really puts a more-dull-than-usual light on cubicle life. My staff meeting notes from today…

…became a lunch time for-fun illustration.

I need to get back there soon.