Where to start where to start, lol. It's definitely been way too long. So what the heck have I been up to I guess.

Went to Dallas last weekend to jump start a project I'm working on. Huge... HUGE project, haha. It's bigger than I ever thought, and I'm head of usability (can blind users use this website, disabled users, sight impaired, etc etc..) and graphics, and then we're going to make it so that other designers can apply their own look and feel to the app, which is up to me to make sure that happens. The meeting went well, and we took off at a huge pace, faster than I've ever built any website, and we all gelled really well, all the guys are extremely cool.

Today, I totally found out that I really do have allergies! Scoreboard for sneezes: 30x today, Scoreboard for red eyes: 1/2. Lol, and I also found out that non-drying, non-drowsy sudafed actually is just a lie! I was passed out today for hours, lol. So much for getting work done.

Tomorrow I'm extremely psyched, gonna get my motorcycle started! We're putting all the new parts on it and cranking her up to see how she sounds, which I'm sure will be just fine. Friday my paint is finished and then we put all my plastics on my bike. I ended up going with a bright silver-white color and diamond flakes in it (small amount of the stuff) to make it stand out, and easily match whatever I ride in. Then get the rims powder coated, and whammo, I've got a damn nice looking "new" bike, lol. Hopefully I'll be back out on the thing by week's end.

Lessee graphics, jobs, motorcycle. Thats bout it for now. Will be posting pics of the new paint and me riding again, lol. Later kids!

-Ken

\\Read about my Bean Here//
Why's this here? It's a high interest part of my little post that I wanna make sure you'll read! So click it!

New entry, for absolutely no reason I guess. Feeling unorganized and restless, been floating around on about 6 projects with no details really, just airy promises. I'm also getting back into research on design, new ways to do it etc etc. I think you guys might actually end up here with both my journal and my portfolio. I'm gonna have to see and do some tooling, but I'd  like to have a central place for my journal and my work. Just assign a .com to redirect to here, and whammy, we're set.

My motorcycle parts are coming in very slowly, which makes me nervous. No one has contacted me so far, and its been nearly 3 weeks since ordering. Rawr! I'm no good with frustration, espescially when I've spent (seperately) 1500 dollars on trying to make sure I have all my parts.

Things are going smoothly in the personal life, as smoothly as can be expected I suppose. My social life would actually increase a good deal if I would just have my bike back. Right now, as it stands, it still needs a good deal of parts, but it will have a primer gray tail and front section with a lime green gas tank. I think I'll hold off for the paint, lol.

As it stands now I have my foot in one very large, very very large project with my business contact from Dallas. What a guy, always hooking me up with the contacts I just cant make out here in Shreveport (commonly referred to as the Armpit of the US). There's just something about shreveport citizens that makes them justify paying nothing for a website, or having an -entire- identity developed (logo, posters, biz cards, letterhead, etc) for little to nothing. Know how much nike's identity costs? Like upwards of 4 mil. If they were shreveport, they'd be asking to have this 4 Mil dollar identity developed for 50 bucks. It's disgusting, haha. Anyways, back to the dallas stuff. It's awesome, its godly, and it's gonna make quite a pretty penny payout. Say that last bit three times fast, go on, try it =p. Anyways, I'm so excited about it, haha! Think Xanga huge, think google huge, think easy as gmail, and then think of me as the core designer. Now I just need to bone up on my standards for the web and some new techniques and I'm set, thats all =p, haha.

Back to the shreveport thing, and college combined. I'm totally gonna major in web design. I love photography, but this is exciting, huge and if I do pull this off, wow, I'll be knee deep in projects and contacts. So that being said, I'm still gonna go to denton for college. I'll make too many contacts out there. Too much competition to drive me out there. Too many people actually willing to pay me real webdesign fees. I can't wait.

-------Double Post!-------

iPod Hits Home 

Walls

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So, here goes. This is gonna be one of those shotgun posts again, I just feel myself rattling around inside and can't sleep. I don't know what to even say here. So many of you read this, and so I have to be careful. But my emotions lately have soared to completely new and amazing heights. And then today, right at the end, they came blazing down around my ears.

You always worry about pushing people away. Then you worry about letting them in too close. And your reactions never are exactly what you'd like them to be. And then, when you hit rock bottom, you clamor for a soul to listen, someone who'll catch that cliffhanger fall your tripping toward, and grab your hand on the way down. And while they hold your hand, the only thing you can think about is, am I going to get hurt for letting them in too close?

I'm this 110%, heart in it, passionate, emotional guy. My sleeve bleeds all the time, and my heart begs me to put it back into my chest, but I just can't "half-ass" anything. I won't. It's honestly worth it, to have all the pain in the end and have those 110% experiences. Though you reel from the shock of it all, in the end, its a good thing, its a great amazing thing.

Nah, I won't run from it all, and I'm sure these things rolling through my head are over-corrections and doubts, I'm making it bigger than I should ya know, but for once, I wish it would be ok to just full on run, not look back or fear for my own recovery at the end of it all.

Too scared is probably the best thing to call this, yet the one thing that makes this worth it, that makes continuing on so important, is that I'll think ahead and know it'll be good. Gut feelings and intuition aside, cuz well, screw that, male-fact-based logic screams it will be good.

I really don't know what I'm trying to say, maybe I'm just attempting to convince myself through this medium that yeah, its cool that you dropped your walls, scared yourself, and followed your feelings. Those few moments where you caught me, held on, and didn't let me throw walls back up was worth it.

When mind shattering events happen to me, my world turns upside down. I'm busy, but not quite busy. I've got this indescribable itch at the back of my mind that fuels me to lose sleep, sit straight up in bed, and instantly wonder why the hairs on the back of my neck bristle. I've got some theories on this.

One, my camera gear, but I cannot go into this without first going into an even bigger situation in my head. The thing is, photojournalism is this huge like, calling for me I guess you could say, I've got my whole college career planned for it for this August. In fact, my whole Junior and Senior year in high school kind of slammed me right into it. You make these awards and you intern with your mentors, and you learn. And it just so happens that your good at it. Apparently shockingly good. I'd be a fool not to go right? I was talking to one of my friends Dad last night, amazing guy, has had experiences and goals that make me feel like a two year old with him. Back to the bike: The bikes not even worth it, its totalled, in fact, I'm kind of scared to get on the thing again. No not all bikes, I'm getting another, but that particular bike, it'll never run true again. So I'm gonna part the bike out and sell it through ebay. I'm looking at having it ripped apart and crated in 4 hours with my friends dad.

ANYWAYS, sorry for getting so side tracked. The other day, I made this layout for the Shreveport motorsports store, who will be working with me on the new bike. I sat down, plugged head phones in, and cranked that layout out with 4 versions of it in 4 hours. Here's the scary part. I loved every minute of it. Never noticed that my back ached from not moving and staring at the screen as my graphics took shape. I finished, and stretched, and looked on it like you would a son or daughter, and was extremely proud. Whys that scary? It's not at all what I was planning on doing for a career, but I can see it as such a profitable and lucrative career path, I'd be foolish not to pursue it.

the layout

But wait, I'd be foolish not to pursue Photojournalism right? I mean, awards... internships... connections in Dallas... its all there, and I'm only 20, I'd be a moron not to go and follow my dream there, the path is so paved for it already, and I could become one of the greats that everyone knows about and make a ton of money taking pictures right? The thing that shook me was this: you marry that career. Its 12 - 16 hours a day depending on how hella-awesome and in demand you are. You go to hell and back for some assignments, and sometimes you do nothing for the job.

But, I'd still make a guaranteed 2x as much doing web design, and I do like it. I like it so much I can sit down and crank the pages out, even whittle away on 40 pages of code and actually enjoy that nitty picky part of web design. I know, isn't that just sick, haha. Anyways, I'm shaken right now because I have no idea what I want to do... -once again-.

Me and my brother have discussed it, and we know we could corner the market here with webdesign. There's no one here in the NW Louisiana area that can beat what we can do, and once we get our name out with Shreveport Motorsports, we won't have a problem making the contacts and credibility we need to make. I could very well take this software that we are making for them, and make so much money reselling it with my brother that I'd never have to work a day again for the rest of my life. Software Licensing anyone? Haha. Beautiful thing is, we're making it so modular that we can resell it in a day with a complete re haul of graphics, it'll never look the same twice, but it'll always be able to do everything that a store would need it to do. Inventory tracking, ordering, shipping, credit cards, service times and tracking, all of that. Rinse and repeat and we're making too much money ya know?

What a freaking dilemma, and all I really want right now is my motorcycle, or heck, -A- motorcycle again.

-Ken