Mar 26 2010

A Blue Family in Red Country

Sarah Palin Bumper Magnet

I live in Frederick County, Maryland. Many people will tell you, Maryland is, traditionally, a Democratic state. With a few exceptions (I’m looking at you Michael Steele) we elect to the left of the political spectrum. Lately, it has not been overwhelmingly so, but it is still pretty reliable.

The population is concentrated in the middle of the state, closest to the District. I’ve noticed those centrally located counties are the most culturally, politically, and economically diverse. That’s the blue part of The Old Line State. Frederick County is not in the blue part of Maryland.

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Mar 21 2010

Wedding Invitation Design Experiments

I’m getting married in June.  I am Captain Procrastination as well as Captain I-can-do-it-all-myself. These two things? They are not a good combination. These are important details, remember them for later. Needless to say, my invitations are not yet in the mail. Nor are they printed. They are, however, designed, finally.

I am one of those people who knows enough about Adobe’s products to be dangerous. I could have gone to one of the multiple very cool, funky, interesting wedding invitation sites and ordered some very, very cool wedding invitations. I also know enough about printing and the wedding stationery business to be just as dangerous. First, I know the difference between engraved invitations, thermographed invitations, and letterpress invitations. I also know they are are all RIDICULOUSLY expensive! Gorgeous! But ridiculously expensive all the same. I’m working on wedding number two, here, so a) I get to pay for everything myself and b) I’m not spending a ton of money on formal/traditional wedding invitations.

So, my basic plan is this: Design my invitations; send the paper and design off with the fiancé to work where they will be professionally printed and die-cut at an incredible discount; assemble, address, and mail off the invitations; profit.  Naturally, my first steps would be to rough out an invitation idea and find myself some paper.

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Mar 13 2010

Adventures In Homeownership part 1

(Well, not technically part 1 but certainly part 1 for this blog.)

Since moving in to the new house I have moved the modem 3 times. (Did I mention we’ve only been here a month?) Already, I am making evil plans to move it again. This time though involves super fun construction! Obviously this 4th reconfiguration gives me more pause because it involves drilling holes in walls. I think I have a really good plan for making this work. I have lofty goals.

Mar 07 2010

Updates In Progress

Another day done and more updates and polishing done to the old home domain name: viciousgrin.com.  Most of the work was done on the Writings section and a lot of removing broken links and other fun stuff of that nature.  I think the next polishing steps are going to be adding the links from the boring home page into pages on the blog design.  Or!  Adding all that lovely and glorious content into the wonderfully-not-designed-by-me WordPress site.  Very exciting for me.

I haven’t done any real, solid, good site design work in at least 2 years since I stopped working for VetInsite (now VetStreet).  And even then, those were your average static websites.  /shrug.  I enjoy appreciating the more than excellent talent of more gifted folks than me.

Tomorrow’s blog post should hopefully detail the new desks, various furniture purchased this weekend, status of the home unpacking and various other actually exciting things that have happened over the last few days.  Yay!

Mar 07 2010

First!

Because any good blog has to start with some firsties. . .

The brief summary here is that I have been known by a few different monikers for the last 12 years or so.  One of those being viciousgrin.com.  I haven’t touched any of the html or design or even CONTENT on anything in my viciousgrin.com domain in 5+ years.  This . . . is no good.  So, in the process of getting this gorgeous new blog up with a design I didn’t have to build, but get the joys of understanding and appreciating for its beauty (as well as customizing to suit my own aesthetics), I feel a wee bit of pressure to pretty up the previous wreck of a website.

Stay tuned to this spot.