May 2014: A Brisk Whiff of the Year to Date

Man, how time flies – I can’t believe it’s May again already! I can’t pretend like I’m going to get around to blogging regularly again, but I’ve been keeping busy so it seems like a good time for an update.

Readers who are seeing this on the actual site itself will notice that I did a relaunch of sorts last weekend. I’ve been toying around with Javascript and non-Javascript based navigation, interactions, and presentation, and although the site has a long way to go before it’s at the point where I’m feeling good about it (and where it covers JS and non-JS use cases), I felt it was far enough along that I wanted to get it out into the world. There’s still much to do, but at least there’s a base now. Many thanks to Abby Haddican for designing the transparent monogram at the top of the page.

Speaking of Abby, I’ve had the distinct privilege of working with her on a couple of web projects recently, one on a freelance basis (her own portfolio site linked above) and another for the design agency where she did an internship last summer, Werner Design Werks, as part of my full-time work at Room 34. Abby’s clean, minimalist designs make it a joy to put these sites together, and I feel pretty proud about how both of them have turned out. While there remains as much to learn as ever about web design and development, I feel as though my skills have improved immensely in actual, measurable ways over the last year of doing this full-time. I can’t wait to see what the next year will bring.

In non work-related news, the band I’ve been playing with since February 2013 has finally come up with a name – Loud Nerves – and we’ve even booked a show! Our debut performance will be on Wednesday, June 18th at Stevens Square in Minneapolis as part of the Cinema & Civics series that happens there every year. We’ll have the esteemed honor of opening for the 1990 classic movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’m looking forward to it! There’s also talk that we’ll be doing some recording soon, so I’ll have actual music to share with others for the first time in quite awhile.

That’s it in terms of major announcements right now. More soon.