Weather:
End of the summer and even though this week has some hot days it’s starting to cool off. Prepare yourself for colors to change. Unpack your hoodies. Roll thru leaves.
It’s been a little while since the last post for a wide range of reasons that I’ll get into. This post will be a long one for certain so I appreciate your patience. If you’re on the train commuting turn off the podcast. If you’re at work stop clicking back and forth between your in-box and twitter. I tried to give this some thought so take a moment to read it. If you’re short on time just scroll through the photos.
Some things worth you’re time:
That’s it as far as links and videos and what not. Now on to the main course. Here are the things that happened:
One of the main reasons for the long delay between posts has been film development.
Lately I’ll drop a roll and shoot half of another or use a different camera and then want to get all that developed before I post.
Right now I have 3 rolls at the lab and one in the Canonet that’s a few shots from being done.
If I waited for those it’d probably be 3 more weeks and by then I’d have a few more partial rolls and the cycle would continue.
Also there’s the ease of instagram/facebook/flickr.
I’ve probably posted a good amount of these pictures somewhere already.
Should I have waited and just posted them all here first?
Do people just want all their pics in one spot to make it easier? Does that make it more consumable or disposable?
Lately I’ve been trying a new technique with these posts too.
As you can see the pictures and words aren’t directly related (for example – picture of dan = here’s a picture of dan). It’s more like here’s some photos I took,
and art I made
and adventures I had
and art my friends made,
and tacos I ate
and people I saw
trips to the zoo and
museums and
interspersed is a connected piece of writing.
This one is about some big changes in my life. In general there’ve been a ton of changes over the past few years in my life.
A few really heavy losses.
Some great friends moving and some moving back.
Friends changing jobs and changing careers.
This was something I had been thinking about for awhile.
It was time to make a change.
Change can be good but it’s always a little scary.
Changes in money.
Even just changes in the your daily work and commute routine.
There’s some comfort in a known stability but in the world we live in now there’s nothing that’s a hundred percent certain or stable. Companies get sold and bought and outsourced and some times there’s nothing you can do about it.
For a long time when people asked me what I did my reply would be ‘computers.’
More specifically I did a bit of search engine optimization and marketing, re-marketing advertisement, analytic management and reporting, some website maintenance and content updates as well as a good amount of testing and shopping cart optimizing and maintenance.
I graduated from college with a fiction writing degree and the job kinda fell into my lap as something that was meant to be a temporary fit. I tried my best to contribute and learn and fill in where things needed to be filled and do stuff people didn’t want to do and eventually I worked up to a pretty enjoyable position.
The company I worked for was a fine company and as companies are it was filled with great people and people who were stubborn and excited people but the important thing is that it was a company in transition.
Transition can go either way. Let me stop and say the exact company I worked for doesn’t really matter. A friend’s wife got me in there and it wasn’t something I was really passionate about but it was a really good place to work. In the first few years I was there it merged/took over another company.
Then it was sold to investors. I don’t have a degree in business and I’m not the best person to explain EBITDA or margins or anything else so this is just what I observed as a non-MBA person.
When you promise investors that you’ll make x amount of money every year you have to make x amount of money every year. If not you are going to lose your job.
So to keep your job you’ll try and find a way to make that promised number of dollars. I guess the same thing would happen if you took out a loan.
This was a pretty important life lesson about creative control and values.
I’m eternally grateful for the time I had there and for everything that I learned and all the great people I worked with but I knew it was time to do something different and by different I mean totally different. In all honesty I’m done trying to figure out if the word “platinum” vs “premium” will get a consumer to spend more money. I just want to be part of something that puts out a great product and consumers enjoy that great product and that product stands on it’s own merit.
So for my new job I looked at a place that I’ve been trying to get into awhile but in the past it hadn’t worked out.
Now I’ll stop and say that for now and forever I don’t speak for the company, and my views are my own and all the other legal mumbojumbo and I’ll even go as far as not naming the new company because I think that’s what it might say that in the employee handbook but let me say that it’s the best brewery in the world. You may have another opinion or rank some other place higher and that’s perfectly fine. I don’t work at some other place.
If you know me it’s pretty obvious.
It’s always been my favorite.
I’ve been going there forever.
I even interviewed there a while back.
It’s in my neighborhood.
I’ve sold koozies there.
They even have my past two calendars up on the wall.
As of today I’ve been working there for a good stretch and so far it feels like a really good fit. The right company size, awesome people, just a generally good work environment.
When I switched some people didn’t understand going in a totally different direction and not all computer related. For friends and people close to me it wasn’t a surprise at all.
There was also a bit of luck. I had interviewed for another job and it went fantastically. When I left the interview I was told to get ready because it was a just a matter of paperwork.
Then I didn’t hear anything for a day. Then nothing for a week. So I wrote the proper ‘just checking in, still interested’ follow up.
It bounced immediately with a reply that the recipient had found a new job and moved elsewhere.
A few days later I received a standard application rejection letter telling me the job had been filled. This was a little bit of a bummer but I chalked it up as a good experience and in hindsight it was. To everyone out there looking for a new job who’s been out of the marketplace for any stretch of time I’d suggest doing a few interviews. They are weird things especially if you don’t feel comfortable talking about yourself or selling yourself because that’s what interviews are. I’m sure if you ask pretty much any of my friends or former co-workers about me they’d give me solid recommendation but I have a hard time distilling that into small soundbites to use about myself. It got easier or at least I knew what to expect as I continued to interview.
An hour before my interview for my current job I got a call from the place that hadn’t hired me.
When I called them back a few days later I found out there was a number of unusual circumstances and I had actually gotten the job. By then it was too late. In the end it worked out for the best. I couldn’t be happier. It’s always hard to say when the right time is for a big life event like a job change and for some things there may not be a ‘right time’ and you just have to go for it and make it work and life continues to move forward.
As far as art goes I’ve been trying to get some stuff done but I’ve been a little slowed up with work and transitioning and family stuff. Time is hard to make more of.
I was absolutely delighted that someone bought my ‘You Are Beautiful’ piece.
Steven Erst had a fantastic show a few months back that made me want to go bigger.
Alex has been a great inspiration of someone getting it done.
He had the Carrie Seacrist show that I thought was his strongest work ever.
Last week he had an opening at Roots and Culture.
He’s on a roll.
The shows at the Culture Center and Charles Ray at the Art Institute were all really fantastic. See them before they’re gone.
As for me I’m a little more settled and caught up and working on some proposals and sending some mail. Always good to keep ideas brewing.
This year’s Farecard is going a little slower than the past 3.
Ryan moved to Portland.
Jackson moved to southern California although I hear that he’s back in town.
Tim was down for a month or so with a pretty awful swollen and bruised foot.
Nate broke his foot.
Morley was out of state.
I was stressing about the job change.
My hours changed and it took my body a little while to adjust. Being behind a computer maybe mentally draining but working on your feet for a full shift can really tire out your arms and legs.
My whole family was here for a visit.
I spent a good amount of time roasting peanuts.
Those are just general excuses and circumstances and the good news is I’m putting together a trailer and it should be done next month.
That’s all for the seriousness. I’m sure the next post will be back to skateboarding and art and food.
The final thing is a big thank you to the crew who came out for my annual birthday Estabrook trip. We skated, we went to the beer garden, we laughed a bunch. We also weren’t deterred by a forecast that called for showers all day. Those showers never materialized and the weather was perfect.
So I’m a little older but hopefully a whole lot wiser.
I’ve also got a slick new mustache!