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November 16, 2012

A few pretty cool things have happened in the past few weeks:

- Over one of the Halloween weekends, a bunch of us went to a haunted house in Radford. The house itself was okay, just people dressed up screaming at you with strobe lights and dental floss hanging from the ceiling...cheeeeaaaappp... the best part of it all was waiting in line. It was about an hour wait to get in, and thankfully we were with the best company possible. We started playing 20 questions then it turned into the arm tangle ice breaker game. If you've been to Hokie Camp you'll know what I'm talking about (don't hate, Hokie Camp was awesome). Sounds pretty dumb, but everyone there was so willing and not weirded out by the concept of playing this crazy game in the middle of a line with all these people staring at us. I know so many people who would've rolled their eyes and opted out, but these people were just the perfect mix. I'll never forget that.

Here's our beer olympics team (minus one guy who didn't dress up?). We were The Old Things, please notice the cat in Shannon's pants. (We won the superlative for most in character, probably because we walked around yelling WHAAAATTT at people in our signature thick country accents. We are 65 year olds trapped in 22 year olds bodies):

-As previously stated, there was the Color Me Rad run here in Blacksburg. I wore a GoPro and took footage/videos and Grant edited it all together. Watch the vid here. Anddd...I photoshopped the pink out of my teeth in the pic below...thats why they look a lil funky:

-I visited Charlottesville for the first time ever to visit Abby. Gotta say...its a pretty sweet place. The walking mall? So nice. Urban Outfitters?!? Blacksburg, you gotta step it up!

- My dad and I ran the Richmond half marathon. It was my second and his first. (bc my hip is massively ferked, I did the half instead of the full...bummer after all that training but my hip would not let me go over 15 miles). A little about my dad: My mom and dad and sister came to watch me run the half last year, and afterwards, my dad said he was interested in trying out running. Took him long enough. I started cross country and track in 2004, and Caroline and Julia both followed suit and did them too. For Christmas I bought him an iPod, and he was hooked. Took off running and never stopped. He lost about 45 pounds since he started (he wasn't overweight really... but he definitely looks a lot different than he used to). I'm pretty proud of him. A year ago he thought MAYBE he could run the full 8k by this time...instead he conquered the half at a very respectable time.

- Bryce won NL Rookie of the Year and Davey Johnson won NL Manager of the Year! That happening, along with Adam LaRoche winning Gold Glove is all thats keeping me alive right now. Best part is that Brycie won ROY on my dad's birthday. Awwww. As a birthday gift, I've been elaborating on a Bryce Harper poster that I made over the summer and am trying to get the whole team. Here's the original Bryce one:

And here's my favorite one so far:

-About a month ago, the IS got an email asking if anyone in the lab would be willing to volunteer to help with a new student run business. Two Tech students had just gone on a trip to Uganda, and fell in love with the fabric they found there, and decided to make the fabric into backpacks to sell here in America. The proceeds will go directly back to Ugandan students, where $30 can send a student to school for a semester. Well, loving this opportunity, Grace, Devon and I responded and told them we were super interested. We all have different strengths (Grace and Devon are amazing photographers and I got dat design) so it worked out perfectly. I designed their logo and made them some artsy hipster quote pictures that they wanted. The whole thing is called Taaluma Totes, check them out. My only qualm with putting the link in here is that the logo they have on facebook is draft #1. Hopefully they put up the new one soon. Anyway, take a look through the pictures. Here's my hipster photos:

This one they wanted an earthy, handdrawn feel.

Here's one of the bag with my photoshopped logo on it.

and we did a photoshoot and I put the logo on the bag that I'm wearing (I spy that one).

This whole thing is pretty exciting, just because I think it will definitely take off once the bags get here. People apparently are asking for t-shirts and other stuff with the logo on it, so that's pretty cool.

I'm working on a few other freelance jobs that are getting started right around now (including a sweet app that lets you know how drunk you are using fun games!), and then some personal projects that have been super fun too. Such as, my personal branding and website project. I should be doing that now actually. Its still coming together, but the website is up and running. Got my new business cards and letterheads on the way...I'm stoked.

Here's a poster I designed to attract new interns to FourDesign that I'm entering in the Addy's:

-As for personal (quick fire...this was a 20 minute ordeal) projects, all I'm saying is that if you and I have a long conversation about mustaches and then it jumps to Skinks AND we spend 30 minutes crying of laughter because of Action League Now, this will happen to you:

And also if you are inspired and realize just how close Christmas is, this can happen:

and will soon be happening for the whole staff...hope they're ready.

Well its almost officially Thanksgiving break, just here at work for a few more hours then I get to hit the road with Brett, snag lil Chubbles from JMU then pop on down to Fred Vegas (The City of Lights) to see Kerkie then home! My ABQ/Arlington/Portland, Oregon cousins are coming in for Thanksgiving and there are already many plans to rage downtown. 6 can't come soon enough.

Two last things:

I'm in charge of Secret Santa here at the office, and in my survey I asked some pretty loaded questions. Here are some of the best answers:

-take note of #10...I have taught my coworkers well