Alive and Well

Just a quick entry to let you know I'm alive and well. This last weekend we took our annual pilgramage to South Pasadena and friend John's house for a weenie roast, the fireworks and his obligatory strawberry cake. Every year we sing "Happy Birthday."

This year was capped off by a mindless spewing of libertarian/conspiracy theory rant by one of the invitees. There were only a couple of us left at the table when he started. Everyone just kind of sat there, stunned, while this guy spouted (or regurgitated would be more accurate) all the fringe right-wing propaganda he had imbibed. He was onto the international banking conspiracy (which was Hitler's excuse for wiping out the Jews, but I wasn't going to bring that up), when Steve and I just had to get going because he had work the next day. The guy used to be a waiter, but now he sells upscale cookware on the road at Costco locations across the continent. Anyway, here's some video of the fireworks from John's front yard.



My unemployment has expired, but I'm not feeling too horrible about it. I have started splitting my time between job searching and gearing up for the business launch.

A lot has to happen before I can really begin marketing myself: Beyond the paperwork for the fictitious business name statement and the city permits for Pasadena, I also have to rework my website and gear it toward clients rather than employers. Then there's a marketing plan: I've decided to limit my focus to personal and small-business graphics and not try to compete with the larger design/marketing firms. Here's an animated version of the logo I've put together for the home page of the website (we'll see if blogger is kind to it when it converts).



That's about it. There's a family reunion on the 15th, and Evan suggested doing something for my birthday (but nothing has been solidified yet). If anything amazing happens, I'm sure to blog about it. Until then, it's just very hot and very sticky weather here in Pasadena. But since lots of the country is in the same boat, it's not really news. And it is summer, isn't it?