Design Stuff, Music Stuff, Job Stuff, Exercise Stuff

I did a new design for my portfolio website and I really like it. It’s a lot better than what had been up there. I need to add more samples of my work, but that won’t take long at all. You might have noticed I changed the look of my blog, and now they look somewhat similar. I like the continuity.

Speaking of my portfolio website, I’ve sent out another huge round of resumes. I must have sent 100 applications/resumes out. Let’s hope something turns up, because I certainly need a new job.

There aren’t any big plans for this weekend, but I’m ok with that. I’ve got a new schedule for working out and running, so Saturday should be a long run, and I’ve been missing trail running so I’ll probably head into Pisgah to go on a long one. Plus, I need to start saving some money for this “spring break” thing that’s being planned. A long weekend in Florida staying in a place for free near the beach sounds great.

By |February 29th, 2008|Design, Work|3 Comments
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What do I do at work?

I’m sure you’re all wondering.  And thanks to the magic of digital photography and the internet, I’m going to show you.

First off, I actually do do work.  (haha do do)

Secondly I do things like draw stick figures, which I post places like so:

These stick figures generally look like this:

Take a nice long look at that last one.

Ok, it’s time to go.  What a day: three posts on here!

By |February 14th, 2008|Design, Work|1 Comment
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A Few Things

People asking for freelancers pretty much anywhere are ridiculously flaky.

My job is asking me to maybe do some traveling and possibly run some camper recruitment parties. I’d have to recruit kids to come to a camp I’ve never been to while it was in session.

Archive.org is beyond awesome.

I want to live a normal life (like I had in Athens) for a little while.

I want to go on another bike tour. Badly.

By |January 23rd, 2008|Work|Comments Off on A Few Things
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Well

Back to it. Back to the routine, back to work, back to the house, back to Brevard.

It was great to get away for a while. The trip to Laramie somewhat satisfied my wanderlust for a little bit, but I think it also stoked my desire to travel again. There’s something inside of me that constantly makes me want to move. There have been very few things that have made that feeling stop, but they’re pretty much gone now. I should have just left on a trip when my last job fell through. I enjoyed helping Scott work on his house, and I think we’re going to start working again very soon, but now I’ve got this itch to get on the move again. I guess I’ll just try to ignore it and humor it with running.

My laptop died a horrible death the other day. I ordered another one and it should be here tomorrow.

I ordered a bunch of 7″ records lately, and I’m going to start converting vinyl to cd’s for some family friends. I figured I’ll put up a Craigslist post as well if I can figure out a decent hourly rate.

While I’m still working on getting some sort of portfolio designed for http://www.hallpenn.com, I put up some samples of my work at http://hallpenn.carbonmade.com. Hopefully that’ll help me get a few freelance gigs.

Scott’s gone until Saturday, and living alone again is interesting. I tend to be a hermit when I live alone.

By |January 9th, 2008|Design, Work|2 Comments
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Worst Band Names, More Running, New Songs

The Onion’s A.V. Club has released their list of the worst band names of 2007. There are some real gems on there, but I actually liked a few of the names. One of my personal favorites was Fixed Gears are for Jerks and Lesbians. No offense, Evan.

It was a good weekend with Jeff and Liz visiting. Liverpool lost to United at home. Not much fun to see that.

Jeff and I did write a new song (mostly it was him) called I Can’t I Have Rehearsal. A few years ago, Jeff and I had been told that there would be a party at one of our friend’s (we’ll call her Lady) apartment and that we should go. Since there was nothing else going on in Rome, Ga (big surprise), we went. However, something had been lost in translation when they told us about the “party.” It turned out to be a “let’s watch the finale of this fashion reality show on tv” party. Everyone was sitting around, staring at the tv and shooting us mean looks when we laughed or talked, and one ridiculously dorky guy was wearing a shirt that said, you guessed it, “I Can’t I Have Rehearsal.” It didn’t say anything else. Just that. What a huge disappointment of a night that turned out to be.

We also started on a new song called ([Don’t Want] No) Pop-Punk Girl. It’ll be as typically pop punk as we can make it, and it’s sounding great already.

I’ve been working on the design for my personal portfolio site and am aiming to have it finished within a couple of weeks. At the moment it features a very cheery sun and a nice sky blue background. I finished a label for the promo DVD at work, and a little Christmas mailer that will go along with it. It’s always nice to work on creative stuff, even if people don’t expect much out of it. I hope to raise expectations for printed/web stuff at work, and I think I’ve got a good start on that so far.

I’ll go for a long run today, as I didn’t get any exercise this weekend. I want to be ready for the cross country skiing in Wyoming. Plus the altitude won’t help.

I need to start taking pictures again.

By |December 17th, 2007|Design, Music, Running, Work|1 Comment
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Living by the dead

I got a great 1 hour run in yesterday. My legs are feeling stronger each week. Near the end of the run I went by a house I pass by most times I’m out running. This time, however, I saw a bunch of police cars and a van or something, and the whole yard was taped off. After I got home I switched on the tv and the Asheville news was in front of the house. Apparently someone found a body in a shallow hole in their back yard. Not something you usually hear about in Brevard. I thought that was pretty weird to find a dead body in your back yard, and then I realized Scott and I live next to a graveyard, so hey. A couple of months ago an old couple from Hendersonville (the next town over) were reported missing in the woods. The woman’s dead body was found, after weeks and weeks of searching, 30 feet from their car (who dropped the ball on that one?), and the man is still missing. Someone took one of their credit cards and withdrew $300 from an ATM in Tennessee somewhere. Interesting times in Brevard.

Today I’m working on an ad for work that’s going in an outdoor magazine that is distributed in the blue ridge mountain area, really from Virginia to Georgia. It’s coming along pretty well. I love being able to work on stuff I can add to my portfolio. It’s also nice to have something physical that I can look at and know I actually produced something at the end of the day.

I registered hallpenn.com the other day. I’m planning on putting up a portfolio site, but I need to check out pricing for hosting. My last deal with free hosting went belly up because the guy helping me turned out to be a piece of shit compulsive liar and all. Anyhow, I should have a design for the site pretty soon. Speaking of portfolio sites, my friend Phil finished his lately and I think it’s great, so check it out.

By |December 13th, 2007|Running, Work|Comments Off on Living by the dead
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Two steps backward, one step forward

I’m still not at all in the Christmas spirit, especially after it was 75 degrees and I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt yesterday. I’m not sure what it is, but it doesn’t feel like it’s close to Christmas. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m getting older, that I live away from my family, that no one around is all about Christmas, but it’s like every year I’m more and more of a Scrooge. At least last year Lauren was all about Christmas and as much as I might have protested, I actually enjoyed it. Well, except maybe for the Christmas music.

Jeff and Liz are supposed to be coming up from Savannah this weekend, so that’ll be fun. Maybe Jeff and I will record some songs, but I’m guessing the chances of that are slim. Scott was mulling around the idea of putting together the grill his dad gave him for Christmas and having a cookout thing this weekend. It’ll be fun to get a bunch of people over to the house. First off, we need to get the old stove and fridge off of the deck and I’ve got to prep the chiminea this week.

My run yesterday was great. I wasn’t all that much faster than usual, but I felt like I could run for hours. I think the long run on Saturday really helped my legs and I felt like I had an extra lung yesterday. I should say my legs felt great until my ankle clipped the bolt thing on the side of a fire hydrant while looking to see if I could cross the road. I couldn’t cross because some old guy was trying to be nice by slowing down to let me go across instead of just going through the intersection which would have let me cross after he passed, but I couldn’t see if anyone was coming behind him. I hate it when people do that. I mean, kudos on being courteous, but follow the laws. I never trust people that are being nice in cars. Half of the time they’ll wave you on when someone is speeding up from behind them and if you went, you’d be roadkill thanks to their imagined good deed. Anyhow, I’ve been looking at training plans for marathons, and I think I’m going to start one seriously. I’m basically already following a loose plan, but I figure it’d be better to really be prepared for whenever I decide to run 26 miles.

Work has been bothering me lately. I enjoy the job, but everything I’m trying to get done is stifled because the guy that worked here before me had everything so screwed up and unorganized that I have to clean off three things, find where five other things are and then back them up and delete half of the personal files he left on the computer all so I can do one freaking thing.

By |December 11th, 2007|Running, Work|1 Comment
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Early

I have to get to work early so I can leave early. Otherwise I end up running in the dark as the temperature drops. You know, I really thought it would be worth starting a blog. Almost immediately I’m considering this a possible mistake. I mean it’s the first post and I started out talking about the weather.

The guy that had my job before me is possibly the most unorganized person ever. I’ve been sorting through all of the DVD’s and CD’s he left around the office and it’s insane. There’s a shitload of Prodigy (the “band” not the 1990’s internet community thing) cd’s, a bunch of random software and then the occasional work related files. Then there’s the audio CD that’s titled “Wheezer.”

Chris, the bassist for the Pheramones, started a new side project deal. He’s calling it Dick. It’s easy to tell the songs are influenced by Dead Milkmen, and they’re pretty damn good. So next show we’ll be playing them. New music like that gets me excited about playing shows.

By |December 6th, 2007|Music, Work|Comments Off on Early
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