by steelie -

A brief appearance…

I’m still around. I read everybody’s stuff… life is just much busier than usual and kinda preventing me from having the time to write something… something proper anyway.

Oh… My V-sec operation is happening the morning of June 18 June 21 (oops!). That’s something I’ve been meaning to post about for a couple of weeks now but haven’t had the time… Y’know, I wanted to make it all, y’know, like, clever and stuff but since I’m such a SLOW-ASS TYPER I’ve never had the proper time to commit to it… Ah well, I’ll probably be sterile by the next time I get to post. TMI? Probably.

Hope everyone is well.
Hug someone. Peace.
—
stephen

Oh… and I changed the name of my blog. I like it better.

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by steelie -

Show and tell…

Jennifer & Child
Jennifer & Child

I design this a couple a weeks ago and I was kinda proud if the way it turned out, so I thought I’d share. This Jennifer & Child was a logo was designed for a collegue of mine who has recently gone on maternity leave. I wanted to design something nice and clean. I remembered the “Mother & Child” logo designed by Herb Lubalin in 1965 and decided to make it a bit of an homage to one of my most favourite logos ever.

Mother & Child
Mother & Child

Herb Lubalin’s piece is amazing… almost every design student I’ve ever met has looked at this in awe. Of course I wasn’t able to copy what he had done entirely for my collegue’s because she didn’t have an “O” in her name to be able to place the child in a womb. Still… I’m happy that I was able to use the “&” as a baby and the letter “e” in her name. Not nearly as clever as the original… but a decent homage nontheless.

Oh, and keep in mind that the original was drawn by hand.
—
steelie

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by steelie -

QotD: I’m Going Green

Happy Earth Day!  What are some of your favorite ways to reduce, reuse and recycle?

Well, this question couldn’t have at better time for this mini rant…

One of my favourite enviro-friendly things I do (one of the ones I’m prouder of too) is my no-styro rule. I (in general practice*) refuse to use Styrofoam anything. Especially daily consumed “anythings”, like coffee cups, takeout containers, plates… either way, you get my point. At work, I even have a small Rubber Maid container for when I don’t bring my lunch and have to buy food from one of many local vendors… an trend that has caught on with others in my office. At one point, I think we had five of us toting around these reusable containers, often getting weird looks from the vendors until they got used to us. I also have a mug at my desk that I use when I go to get coffee.

Thermos E5
Thermos E5

My wife, ladyshark, and I tend to on the same page for a lot of the enviro issues, which is great. Infact, we both have these heavy duty Thermos travel mugs that we use when we allow ourselves to indulge in the increasingly frequent occasional latte. In addition, we usually tried to steer clear of establishments that use Styrofoam cups. However, yesterday we thought, “Well, we have our own cups… what’s the big deal?”

What’s the big deal, indeed…

Nothing really, unless (whilst your partner is concurrently returning shoes at a different store, you look away briefly to tend to your toddler who has managed to explode the bulk of a large muffin over his new sweater) the person making your latte uses two SEPARATE Styrofoam cups to measure out the soy “milk” for your drinks. I couldn’t believe it… but didn’t say anything because at that point, I knew those cups where destined for the garbage and, as a general rule, I’m not out to make enemies. Thus my silence. However, I briefly look back at Little “L” to again tend to the muffin shrapnel in his hair when once again, I look back to see her preparing our drinks in TWO OTHER Styrofoam cups… seriously, “WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY” (WTF) LADY!

Times like this I wish I were “slightly” more confrontational… I mean, COME ON! We brought our own bullletproof mugs that will last us forever so that we could avoid using disposable cups that  would end up just sitting in the landfill forever.

“Oh, oops. I forgot [to think about what it is that I’m doing to the environment every time I throw one of these cups in the garbage]!”
Shut up. Please.

****SELF-RIGHTEUOS-RANT WARNING****

People please, if you are going to go out and buy coffee/tea everyday, purchase yourselves a nice mug that will last you a while. Most places (in Canada anyway) will even give you a 10-15 cent discount on your beverage. So this way, instead of throwing out over 240 disposable cups a year (multiply that by the number of hot beverages you consume each day at work) you could be saving almost $40 a year (now multiply that by the number of hot beverages you consume each day at work).

At least Oprah has hopped on the bio-deisel-bandwagon with her show last week about all the little things we can do to be a bit more environmentally friendly everyday… Now, an entire flock of people will ONLY NOW start thinking about these issues thanks to Oprah. Holy “Friday” that woman has a lot of influence… Of course now, she’ll probably get sued by slew of companies that produce disposable products. Sorry “Swifter”, Oprah just knocked your stock down a few pegs… Time to sue. Make some of that money back.

Okay, okay. That was a serious digression.

Long story short… buy a nice mug. If you and nine other people in your office decided to make this change, you would collectively be contibuting 2400 fewer disposable cups to the landfill every year. If ten people at ten different companies did the same, there would 24,000 fewer… and in ten different cities, 240,000 fewer… 10 provinces/states, 2,400,000 fewer… and then if all of this were carried out across a mere 10 countries on this planet, 24,000,000 fewer disposable cups would be added to the landfill every year… Multiply that by the number of hot beverages you consume each day at work.

Now go hug a tree… they’re a big reason you breathe.
—
steelie

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by steelie -

I have a cold… I’m exhuasted… but I feel alive!

Late last night, while my computer was processing some files, I was watching some of Jump London, a Parkour (PK) / Free-running documentary. I love videos like this because even though I only got to see 15 minutes of it, I just felt absolutely inspired to get up from my computer desk and run… it didn’t matter that it was 2:15 am… or where I would go… there was simply nothing I’d rather be doing, than PK.

This morning I was running a bit late… well it was tight but I would have been on time but Little “L” wanted me to take him to the toilet at daycare before I left. It’s kinda become part of our morning routine but I was hoping he wouldn’t notice so that I might slip away to catch the ferry. Note to Self: Kids always notice when their routine is thrown off… and hey, he did want to use the toilet which is excellent potty training progress. Can’t fault him for that.

After settling him into his class, instead of rushing like I normally would, I deceided to take some Me time. The next boat wasn’t coming for another half-hour, so I dropped the car back home and ran down to the the train track that run along the waterfront on the way to the ferry. I decided to run/walk/jump along the rocks along the shoreline for excercise, PK practice and just for fun. My run, however, became much more meditative than I could have ever
expected…

My rocky path...
My rocky path…

The stretch of rocks was roughly a 0.8 – 1.0 km run. I became completely focussed on the the rocks surfaces… where and how my feet had to land… when and where I had to place my hands… all as I negotiated my way along the shoreline. Once I reached my destination, I went in but realised that this morning, I felt I was meant to stay outside and continue moving. I really did not want to stop.

Once on the ferry, I felt like I had become very aware of everything around me. I watched the waves like I used to when I was a kid. I watched and really noticed how things in the forground pass by quicker than those in the background — I already knew they did but It was like I was realising it for the first time.

For the greater portion of the day I have felt completely f’under the weather, physically. I have, however, quite enjoyed being in my head today.

I have always looked forward to doing PK with the rest of the group because there is a great energy about it… and it has been far too long since I’ve the chance to go out. Having said that, in the video, Sebastien Foucan (co-founder of PK), explained that you learn more about Parkour and yourself as a traceur, when you train by yourself. He said something to effect of (and I’m paraphasing here), when you train alone, you are afraid of things more because you only have yourself to rely on mentally and physically. The mind can be your enemy when you’re alone and it’s important to analyse and understand why we are afraid of things the way we are to move past them.

From now on I will train alone more often as opposed to always looking to next group run as the next time I can go. I’m going to out again this weekend. More than once.

Parkour is briliant.
—
steelie

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by steelie -

QotD: Fooled

What's the best April Fool's Day prank you've pulled off or been fooled by?

I like to joke around but I’m actually not too much a prankster, per se. That being said, while I realise that this prank is not isolated to April Fool’s Day (so I may lose points for this), I have this one ongoing prank that I’ve been playing on one of my co-workers since Christmas break… so by default April Fool’s Day gets included…

Most people took the Christmas week off but I had used the remainder of my vacation time for the birth of Baby “X”. So, I worked. I wanted to listed to music without my headphones but the built-in speaker was below my desk (in my computer, oddly enough) so the sound wasn’t the greatest. I share a cubicle wall with one of my co-workers who has great external speakers hooked up to his computer. I did a bit of digging and found a small freeware application that allows you to control the iTunes on another Mac on the same network. I was able to play music through my co-worker’s speakers but control it from my own computer. It was great! What eventually made it even better is that I never told him I found this little program…

… he was off over the break… HE is a prankster… he has played a number of small tricks on me in the past and now I’m finally able to get him back.

So, since January, I’ve been randomly launching iTunes on his computer and/or switching songs on him… not all the time… and not at regular intervals… maybe a couple of times one week… maybe not until three weeks after that. It’s fun. He has no idea. I don’t think I’ll tell him until his or my last day.

I’ve “been had” enough times… I plan on milking this one for a while.
—
steelie

(PS: Sorry to be such a poor Vox neighbour lately… too busy for my own liking. I do read as much as possible. Just not much time to post or comment.)

[UPDATE]
I meant to inlclude this earlier… if for no other reason to help with the visualisation of how this happens and why it’s so funny to me. My favourite example to date was one time TM was having a bit of a meeting at his computer with our production manager JL. They were looking at a booklet design he had created when (and this is the gutsiest I’ve been so far… almost didn’t do it) I launched iTunes, popping it into the forground on his desktop. JL said, “What was that?” TM replied, “I don’t fucking know. iTunes launches itself sometimes and I can’t figure out why!”

I was on the other side of the cubicle wall in a silent laughing fit.

I know some of you will think this is mean of me… but anyone who knows him would LOVE the idea that someone is putting (a harmless) one over on him. I mean, hey…. the guy shot the manager of the HR department in the testicles with a toy pingpong-ball gun he has at his desk. He’s due.
—
steelie

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