Adobe Site of the Day
Thursday, December 20, 2007
I rarely ever talk about work, mostly because I want to avoid any potential conflicts or misinterpretations of what I say, but this is a special case. My first big project at Peter A. Mayer Advertising / Interactive was the Saints SuperFan website. It took quite a while to put together and the site is a testament to the creativity of the agency. Of course, I had nothing to do with the design or the illustration, but I did all of the Flash development for the site -- definitely the most rewarding project I've done so far (better even than the mosaic generator project I worked on at my last job).
Yesterday was my birthday and I got one of the nicest birthday presents from Adobe -- the Superfan site was named Site of the Day in Adobe's Showcase for 12-21-2007. We got a little image "badge" for the website that has my bday on it. Awesome! It's been a goal of mine to win a spot in Adobe's (and formerly Macromedia's) Site of the Day Showcase for years. Like literally since at least the Flash 4 days --I don't remember if I was watching the showcase when I started in Flash 3. It was knowing Flash that got me my first web design job, I got my first agency job specializing in Flash work and in the end it was my skills as a Flash developer that finally got me back to New Orleans to work for Peter Mayer. So, uh, thanks Adobe!
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update on being
Sunday, December 02, 2007
I found this game jelly battle and I'd say about 85% of my free time has been going to that lately. That may be a slight exaggeration, but it has actually motivated me to start working on development for my own game. Actually, it was this idea I had for creating dynamic bezier curves that first got the ball rolling in my head, but Jelly Battle added jelly to the fire. I only wish Jelly Battle would let you choose which "room" you're in so you could compete against friends. I may put up an early prototype of my game here soon, but no promises.Aside from Jelly Battle, I've also been pretty busy having guests the last few weeks or so. It was literally every other week we had a guest. My father-in-law, then a good friend from Milwaukee, then another good friend from Milwaukee, originally from Nola. That first friend had never been here before and I had no due what he'd think. But I felt like I was able to put a pretty good face on the city. We had beignets, ate like gluttons, and generally ran all over the city. We did a LOT of walking, but Nola is a good place for that. He left here to spend a few days in phoenix before going home, and I haven't really had a chance to find out what he thought of New Orleans in retrospect. I don't think it's really his kind of place, which is really too bad for me. We could use a top-notch project manager! He did talk a lot about how much he liked the architecture here. How can you not? I'm a big fan of the oak trees, personally.
Today is December 2nd and its 77 degrees outside. At least, that's what the forecast said. I'd imagine it was actually a bit warmer than that a few hours ago. I'm out at city park with the kids on "the tree side" along City Park Ave. We rarely even go to the playground any more. I can see and hear the kids playing over there from where I'm sitting, but my kids don't even ask to cross the bridge to that side of the park; they have more than enough fun playing on the branches of the huge oak trees. This one in particular that we always come to has about a 9' diameter with these limbs that spread out and grow along the ground. There are a series of wooden posts and metal cables helping to support the heaviest of the branches, which curl down to the ground and back up again. It's neat how the branches that hover just above the ground bounce when you sit on them.
It's a week later now and we're hanging out just outside my apartment on Bayou St John. It's even warmer this weekend than it was last. We're quite blessed to have found this apartment. Our place may not be problem free, as Kim will tell you, but our problems are nothing compared to some. An old friend of ours sent out a group email the other day discussing the appearance of Susan Spicer, a local chef, on Martha Stewart. She took issue with Susan's account of the French Quarter, the Garden District, "all the beautiful areas of the city" still being beautiful and unharmed. My friend's family had a tremendous amount of loss due to the storm and was upset that a New Orleanian in the national spotlight didn't use the opportunity to make the point that New Orleans is NOT okay. There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done. People lost their homes, their neighborhoods, their livelihoods...
But there are other sides to the story. I think a lot of people, given the opportunity, feel the need to make the point that New Orleans is still open for business. Tourism is a huge industry here. The way to encourage people to come is to let them know that it's still worth coming to.
A third point I might make is that, -- hey, a pelican just flew overhead! -- for me, having just moved back, there seems to be an awful lot of normalcy here. I don't know, may be Kim wouldn't even agree with me on that point. But you know, I go to work every day in a professional environment. I come home, have dinner, maybe go to the park or hang out with the kids. I do a little reading online, play 12 games of Jelly Battle, and life just goes on. Of course things world be different if I were still paying mortgage on a house that looked like death. But if what we're trying to do is encourage others to come here to play or to live then we should let people know you CAN come here and have a positive experience.
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Good foods, bad jokes.
This post is from Nov 23 but, uh, I forgot to post it.
I can't constantly consider my surroundings, thinking "omg, I'm living in New Orleans!" all the time, but sometimes I'm Struck by my environment and can stop for a minute to appreciate that I am home. My father-in-law is in town, leaving tomorrow, so today he, my wife, and the kids picked me up for lunch and we went out to Rocky & Carlo's. This is the first I've been there since moving back and it was the same place, but different in so many ways. The layout of the place is exactly the same, but everything is brand new. The walls are new, the tables are new, the staff is new, the bathrooms new!, but the food.... it's not exactly the same, but its close. Very close. One funny thing is that, while they still pile the plates high with food, the plates themselves are just a bit smaller. So while it appears that you're getting the same ludicrous amount of food, it's merely a whole lot of food.
So as I sat there eating my baked macaroni and veal cutlet that'd been fried in fresh oil (that's new), I looked over at my son eating his fried shrimp and I saw myself as a boy eating there with my parents. I was keenly aware that this was an authentic new orleans experience, eating lunch at Rocky's on a cool fall day.
Someone should tell them that the "Ladies Invited" thing may be funny for a minute in a tongue-in-cheek way, but they're really over-doing it.
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