Halloweentime

If you live in SoCal and weren't able to make it to Disneyland to hear Tim Davis sing the Halloween song for the fireworks show, here it is.

Property Search

I'm currently beginning to look into buying property in Orange County. This is a very tricky process when you compare my salary to the salary of most OC residents, but nonetheless, there are 4 or 5 properties that are in my price range.

Ever since moving here 3 years ago I have come to realize that this is probably my home. I have no desire to move anywhere else. BUT, if I had to move it would be to New York City. This is my favorite place in the United States. I love the busyness. I love the extreme seasons, I love the diversity and energy. All around, it's my favorite place to visit. So if I ever had up and move there I wanted to be prepared.

I ran across this property in Brooklyn that I think would fit my taste quite nicely. I'd have to cut back on my Chick fil a spending and possibly go without cable for a while to save up enough money to buy this place, but let me tell you, it would totally be worth it.











It just costs a cool $25 million. Anyone want to go halfsies?

I can't wait to have kids...

Recent Work

I rarely post design projects that I work on. I don't know why. I think I might start doing that more often.

I had the privilege to get to design the marketing brochure for the Doug Fields' Live Curriculum from Group/Simply Youth Ministry (the publishing co. I work for). It's such a great resource for youth pastors and small church pastors. I was actually stoked on the way the brochure turned out. I liked working with the creators of the curriculum and fellow designers on this piece. I love the collaboration of design. Yeah, revision after revision can suck sometimes, but when you get to hold the final piece in your hands it's all so worth it. I love what I do.

Camping

So this summer I went camping in Big Bear with a few of my best friends.



I like camping. I don't love it. On a scale from 1-10 it's about a 6. I mean, really, there's nothing better than a perfectly grilled steak, but I prefer it prepared at Ruth's Chris with a glass of wine. And I have all the rugged Patagonia and North Face gear, but, I'll be honest, it usually only gets worn when the marine layer hasn't burned off in the morning or it's a chilly evening at Disneyland.

This weekend was a blast though. The weather was perfect. We had absolutely nothing planned. We sat around all day and ate, talked, laughed, read and slept. I couldn't have asked for a more relaxing weekend. I love these guys.

Coworkers

So, I this month marked my one-year anniversary working for Group/Simply Youth Ministry. I love my job even more than when I started which, I think, is pretty rare. Usually, stuff starts to suck after a while, but this has been different. I really, really love it.

I get to design book covers, web sites, brochures, catalogs, pretty much anything.

One bummer thing is that I don't get to work with the other designers on a daily basis. Granted, we are on Skype all day talking about about things like How to Teach Your Infant to Swim (I mean really. The child looks comatose and the mom keeps flipping him and dropping him underwater. This is far worse than spanking.) in between meetings, so most of the time it feels like they are a desk away. Anyway, every few months I'll fly out to Colorado for a few days for a design-binge with Veronica and Storm. That's the best.

My Condo. My Project.

If I wasn't a graphic designer I would be a furniture designer...or a plastic surgeon, but that's just way too much school. So, I'll stick with furniture designer as my runner-up career choice.

It's tricky making my little condo in Lake Forest cool..but here's a look into my condo and how I've attempted to cool it up on a limited budget and limited space.

I bought this old carpenter table at a local consignment store. I've seen tables like this go for almost 5x what I paid for it. Makes for a really unique wine table.



I found these glass window tile things at a liquidators store back in Texas for like $10. So I drilled some shelf hinges on the wall and they make for some some cool, modern shelves. Easy and cheap.



I saw a buddy of mind do this in his office (Thanks, Ty) I tracked down some vintage marquee letters, nailed some picture hanging wire and PRESTO, a cool wall hanging. The letters (which I have about 500 of...way more than I needed) cost about $60 on ebay and the nails and wire weren't more than $7 at Home Depot. This whole wall was done in under 20 minutes. So fast and easy.



Lastly, I ran across this awesome truck tarp table/ottoman at Anthropologie at the Spectrum. It's was too cool to pass up. It was a bit of a splurge, but very cool nonetheless. I mean, come on, how often do you find a table/ottoman made out of old Brazilian truck tarps? Almost never.



So, that's some of the stuff I have done to my condo to make it more cool. If I think of anything else that creative or interesting I'll post it. That's all for now.