Still employed

Yes, in case you had heard the news, I am still employed. At least, as of today! Who knows what the future might bring.

Still employed

Yes, I still have a job; the actual layoffs won't happen until mid-February. I feel preeeettttyyy safe then, too. They just added one person to our group...they wouldn't do that if they were going to cut any of us, right? But ultimately, none of us are really safe, and everyone is really tense. It's like Russian job-roulette...wheee!

This is why they call it LABOR day

Three-day weekend. Day one...poke around, walk the dog, hang out, go to see Dark Knight at IMAX.

Day two. Morning. Looking at the old, hated grey carpet (that was born white, long ago). I wonder...

...what's under here? Hey...looks like wood. And it seems to be in pretty good shape.


Let's pull it up! Come on, guys!

This is looking pretty good...on to day three (and in the mean time, Brett is busily painting the trim around the new doors, and the carport supports).













Definitely an improvement over the carpet. We are surprised to find that while there are some flaws, the floor is actually pretty clean and unmarked.


The end result: worth the cramps in my hand from pulling one thousand carpet staples and a hundred million feet of tacking board.

Please, people of the future, should you read this...do NOT put down carpet over wood floors. You're doing future generations a great disservice if you do.

But I'm really, really happy with the result. And I feel like I had a very productive long weekend. The trim looks great too.

Now...time to go to work.

Here we go again

Survived another wave of layoffs, which is nice and all, but I dread seeing what my workplace will become over the next few weeks. They're not saying, yet, but I suspect big changes (besides these) are coming. I'm a little worried...oh well. If the worst finally happens, I'll be all right. For now, I've got a job, so that's good.

Good rules

Just saw this while reading feeds, and thought it was one of the best sets of personal rules I've ever read. These are from Corita Kent, an artist and nun(!). I thought I'd share these thoughts here to help me remember them:

1. Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while.
2. General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher, pull everything out of your fellow students.
3. General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students.
4. Consider everything an experiment.
5. Be self-disciplined. This means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
6. Nothing is a mistake. There is no win and no fail. There is only make.
7. The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all the time who eventually catch on to things.
8. Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
9. Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
10. “We’re breaking all of the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.” - John Cage.

Helpful hints: Always be around. Come or go to everything always. Go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully often. Save everything, it might come in handy later.

Aren't those perfect? I think I'll print them out and hang them in my workspace.

This weekend, the sun is shining (but it's still pretty chilly out). I have more drawing assignments to complete for work, but I'm perfectly happy to have them. I'm very excited to see how they use all these in the ad campaign, and will post them as soon as I can.

Good day, birthday, thing-a-day

Well, tomorrow I turn 42. That means, I believe, that I will receive the ultimate answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything. Right? Right? No?

Oh well. I actually feel good about another b-day rolling around, and I'm having an especially good pre-b-day. I'm working from home today, doing several illustrations for the advertising team at work. This is the first time I've ever done this...and let me tell you, I like it. I could get used to this (though who knows if or when I'll be able to do it again). I though being at home would be too distracting to work, but in reality, I spend more time working here. I feel guilty if I stop and look outside or something. So I've gotten a good amount done, which has been nice. I'll be excited when I can post some of the work I've done, but I don't know yet when it's all going to be out there...I can say this, though: there will actually be billboards in this country that have my drawings on them. Strange! And cool!

Finally, someone from work sent out a link to this site: http://www.thing-a-day.com/ - Thing-A-Day. The idea is that for the month of February, you create something every day. Presumably you post it on their Wordpress blog, but I'll probably just post mine here. It seems like a great way to keep motivated (and a hell of a lot easier than NaNoWriMo!). So try it out.

That's it - back to work! Oh weird - I want to do work.