Waking up in Key West is something else. A rooster will likely be heard, crowing away, letting the world around him know that he is awake and he is king. The six-toed cats are on the prowl, hungry and lounging around awaiting for their minders. You step outside — there’s always a view or a pool or a balcony or a porch. Key West is about the outside and the outside spills inside. The sound of scooters are everywhere.

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The Girl™ and I spent most of the day re-arranging some items in the household and started honing in on finishing up the bedroom and finally starting to lay down the final configuration of the home studio. Sure, it’s 2+ years later but hey, pieces are hard to come by.

In the midst of it, I was inspired to re-do the facade of the fridge with some of the business cards I’ve collected over the years — some are ones I’ve designed, most from friends, some from acquaintances and a few random ones.

Occasionally, things come full circle and I merge two interests or two people or more than two items, matters, things or persons into one small world somehow. This surprisingly happens to me more often than not¹.

Work has these circles too — I managed to combine my love of cycling into various design work for cycling related endeavours and the same might be said for music.

Today however, something really old came full circle for me as I worked on a site that involves skateboarding. My first real “sport” or active interest going back to ’89. More down the line but I found it to be a nice change.

¹ Perhaps as surprising as the number of times I get stopped on the street, greeted and addressed by a strange name only to not be the person the addressor intended it for.  ↩

Recently, Mia and Catano were in town, visiting from San Francisco, The City as they say, as the first part of their vacation/going-to-a-wedding travels. Catano actually has a first name but like Draplin, I prefer using their last name versus their first. Some people just sound good that way.

When we have visitors in town, we get to play tourist. Showing people your home turf as you might not usually see it yourself. While Chicago has been home for a decade now, I rarely do the tourist thing. I have never been up the Hancock or the Sears Tower. I worked in a building right across from the Hancock for a few years, during the dot-com days, up on the 28th floor in a building that charged too much for office space, where money was being spent like it was going out of style. That was 2000 after all.

It was nice — picking out the best that Chicago has to offer, tailored to their specific interests and seeing all of my bikes being ridden around is an interesting thing to behold. Vegetarian restaurants were visited, coffee and tea shops were left in our wake and we rode north, south, east and west.

What interests me most these days, alongside riding bikes and obsessing over trying to find the right small day bag, is conversation and engaging in it on silly and serious levels. Ultimately, it’s what you talk about — how you say and how you listen.

I spoke and listened. What I heard is that good things may be afoot.

While this may be Moustache May and ‘staches¹ are de rigeur these days, I’ve often pondered how they look in the current revival. My reactions range from Selleck-ian genius to creeped-the-hell-out but here are a few reasons why growing a ‘stache may not be a good idea:

1. You’re not Burt Reynolds and you certainly are NOT Tom Selleck.
2. There is a very, very, very fine line between looking hipster cool and looking like a child molester.
3. The above goes double if you sport glasses, especially those that fall in the emo-hipster vein — thick-rimmed, black, et al.
4. Hitler sported a mini ‘stache.
5. It’s not the 70’s.
6. It’s also not the 80’s.
7. Straight up ‘staches from the above decades are boring — handlebar and Frenchy ‘staches are the way to go. The curlier and pointier, the better. Cole Maness is a good example and if you sport a shaved head like him, even better.
8. The ‘stache’s alter ego as “_______ tickler” is a falsehood perpetrated by the Royal Order of Moustachios to get more men to sport them when no women I know like them.

The plush moustache in the thumbnail above is sold by friend Shawn of Shawnimals. He makes good stuff.

¹ And I applaud all of those in the name of great moustache wearers i.e. Tom Selleck.  ↩

The scene at the post office was to be expected — a long queue and no certified mail tags to be found. I had already sent out yearly taxes last week but I was here to drop off the quarterly return.

I don’t wait in the line. There’s an automated machine on the other end of the long, almost-hallway-like shape of this particular post office only enhancing the seeming severity of the queue here. I always head there unless I need to send something international.

There is an inherent fear of the automated machine. It typically sits alone, waiting for someone savvy to come along and happily use it. I belong to this small elite¹ group of people. Those Who Do Not Fear The Technology™.

However, on this day, there are two people ahead of me. Savvy types. Well, except the fella up front who’s being guided by a postal worker. It’s obviously his first time. Eventually he has to get back in line — the machine fails him somehow. The lady in front of me is better but not by much. She falters slightly and the postal worker who’s beautifully decked out in some kind of ladies Burberry jumpsuit with matching Burberry visor and shoes, comes to her aid like some kind of BurberryWoman™ superhero.

While this is going on, I finally notice a girl, who looks like a college student. She’s scribbling furiously away on a plastic chair with a deck of envelopes and other papers next to her. I finally realize that she’s actually doing her taxes right then and there, at the post office. I start to imagine her plan for the day — I’ll wake up, go to the post office and do my taxes then mail it off! The USPS: Your One Stop Shop.

Certainly.

—

¹ I wonder if Obama does as well.  ↩

Another year came around, knockin’ on the door, introducing me to the decade that qualifies me to now watch the late 80’s show thirtysomething. Getting older is something I look forward too — there’s a perception that once you’re past your twenties you’re past the so-called glory years.

A case in point perhaps: an old high school friend of mine used to listen to Bryan Adams. Yes, that Bryan Adams. And notably, he loved the song, Summer of 69. He wanted his own Summer of 69. I read somewhere a few years later, someone being humourous about the song — essentially commenting on how sad it was that Bryan Adams would write about one specific period in his life (or whoever the protagonist of the song was or is) and how it was the best time of his life. I had to agree. If your life boils down to just one specific period, then I feel for you.

To me, the years get better and better. And there’s still a lot to do — I feel I’ll never get to do everything I want to, but it’s good to aspire to something, however small or large it may be.

The backyards of the houses around here look like movie sets. Glistening with fresh snow and a soft ambient light made up of miniscule flurries. I keep pace behind the canine leading my way through the inches. It’s odd to see this whiteness again, a return to earlier in the year. As predicted, March brings one last hurrah, one last snowstorm.

I look forward to the warmth that’s on deck for the end of the week, a high of 60°. The day I turn thirty.

Hello, Austin. 9:31pm, dead beat. I’m not sure how I managed to go-go-go last year on Friday (could be the more relaxed pace, biking and general giddyness) but this year the early 4am wake up call, subsequent flight and general rushed morning left The Girl and I beat. Austin has welcomed us with some mild, cool weather.

A bit of future forecasting: some of you may be reading this during my presentation tomorrow morning. If so, hello.

As designers become increasingly frustrated with typography on the web, the decision to default to type that most have on their computers or pick a dynamic text replacement method such as SIFR or using PHP is one we fuss over.

This is one issue that plagues me — the choice to use dynamic text replacement or what a user has. I originally intended this site to make use of SIFR but decided against it in the end due to the recent redesign I did of the peripheral blogs (as we call them internally) at Gapers Block. We purchased Archer specifically for this redesign (there are four in all, accessed from the navigation at the very tope) and wanted to make full use of it.

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More from Seattle, on Flickr. Day Two starts here and Day Three, here (navigate right to move forward in the timeline).

Seattle is still a grungy town. The youth of Seattle still sport flannel, lace up boots and “vintage” clothes from the local Goodwill. This isn’t a bad thing — I’m just surprised that Grunge™ is still alive and well. My teenage years were spent wondering about this mystical place that had spawned many a band that I listened to intently. I watched Singles religiously.

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